Walk & Talk 8 : Luck isn’t random, its built: How to master the serendipity mindset #106

After all, all art is experience. Gary, hello.

Hi, George. We're in London. It's windy.

It sure is, but we're back for another one of our famous walk and talks, and we're talking all about serendipity today. It's based around a book that I know has inspired you quite a lot, and I wondered if before we kick off, perhaps Tell us a bit about it.

Well, I've had a bit of a moment. We had one of our episodes on networking, if you remember, and the intro to that was about serendipity. I've been looking for ages to join the dots and, oh, that might be the name of the book, to decode serendipity. And I've read a book called Joining the Dots by Dr. Christian Busch, who decodes serendipity. And so there's a chance for us to talk a little bit more about it because it's the why to networking as far as I'm concerned.

Nice. Yeah. So I'm wearing your bag, which is why I'm looking slightly hunched to those who are viewing. But it matches.

It does match your lovely house.

Which is a serendipitous in itself. We also, you know, we positioned ourselves by the Guildhall and there's a nice photo.

Can we show what we've got behind us?

Yeah, this statue, which we tried to find a link to.

Yeah, it's kind of a naked man and woman. Tried to look it up. I have no idea, but it's outside the Guildhall, so it must be important.

Exactly. Gary, I'm going to kick off. Go for it. For the question. We all know that one person in business, just seems to be lucky. They land all the big deals and they meet the right people by accident and so it would seem. Now, according to Dr. Christian Busch, that's not magic, it's a skill.

And that's the skill that we're going to be talking about.

So my question to you is, can we actually train ourselves to be lucky?

Wow. Can we walk and talk?

Yeah.

Yeah. You know what? I think you can. And part of it is to influence your own luck. And that's kind of the basics behind the book. But forgetting the book, just generally, serendipity is about influencing your own luck. And one of the examples I'll give is that I do follow training with lots of people. If there's 60 people in a room and you ask 2 people to stand up and say what their birthday is, there's a 95% chance that someone in the room will have the same birthday. But if there's 17 people in the room, there's a 100% chance. So serendipity is not as coincidental as people think. You just need to be brave enough to join the dots.

Nice. A great link to the book there as well. We're not sponsored by the book, I should probably add early on, but we have been very inspired by it, which is why we're going to be referencing it quite a lot. Speaking of which, in the book, there's a concept of only seeing objects for its intended use. In an office, do we do the same with people? Do we pigeonhole them so much that we miss their hidden value?

Yeah, I think the thing about serendipity is not about running around trying to find some kind of meaningful coincidence, which is part of the goal. It's actually to understand that people have different experience, different backgrounds, and sometimes You know, you've been thinking about noodling about something and someone might have some experience you hadn't thought about, and then it's called connecting the dots or joining the dots, whatever. You might be able to connect something that they said to you. It jogs your memory or it gives you an idea that you hadn't thought about, or it does nothing. But I think the point is that everyone has a richness and that you're trying to kind of look for it in others by being curious.

Nice. And on that note, we're often told to plan things. To the nth degree almost. And all of us do not overplan it. I didn't plan for a plane to be flying over here, to be honest. But does a rigid corporate strategy, you know, does it have the potential to actually kill our chances of finding the gold that we didn't know we were?

Yeah, it's a really good question, George. It's a bit of a dilemma, isn't it? Because we've done lots of episodes on planning and setting goals, and all those things are really important. But sometimes it's best just to kind of let things happen. And be open. I think being open's probably more important. But you know, there's a saying I use a lot, which is goals in concrete, plans in sand. I think that's good guidance because if you kind of long-term, you know where you want to go, just let the rest of it happen as you go.

Yeah, nice. Taking this obviously, you know, continuing the work though, if a team member is spending a lot of time chatting with another department, a manager may see that as time wasting. Is it time wasting? And if not, how do we rebrand that as creating As the book says, serendipity.

Well, sometimes it is time wasting. I think it depends, you know, in Google they have something called 20% time. And the idea is that you can spend 20% of your time thinking and 80% of the new ideas come from 20% time. So you can see the value. On the other hand, if people were just kind of, you know, ailing about chatting and not getting on with life, then that's also not a good thing. So I do think you should spend 20% of your time thinking, maybe plan Book it in your diary as part of your development. But yeah, we don't want people just kind of ailing about, not being productive either.

No, for sure. And you sort of just have to, I guess, having those conversations, as long as you are having those conversations, is being open to the serendipity effect, isn't it? It's sort of, that's what it's all about. But yes, you need to be able to spot the difference between sort of gasbagging and, uh, yes, creating the serendipity hooks. Dr. Bush suggests changing how we answer the, what do you do question? How should we be introducing ourselves to maximize our lap surface area?

Yeah, the principle is that, you know, we all go through the basics. So where'd you come from? How long you work there? What's the weather like today? And you've got to try and break through the small talk somehow. And one of the ways, and I've always done this by asking, you know, what's the best thing that's happened to you today? But if I'm in a meeting session with some business people, instead of asking their job titles, I might want to ask them, you know, what's exciting about what you're working on at the moment, even if it's hard, what gets you out of bed and keeps you alive. Because then you might get more inside. Because the goal of life is to be curious, to genuinely have an interest in other people and find some kind of meaningful coincidence. And therefore you've got to ask better questions. You've got to be curious. And in order to be curious, you've got to get beyond the small talk.

It's just tough. It is. And it's so natural to say, so what do you do? I mean, something which I do all the time.

I do as well. What do you do? That Totally the same.

No, for sure. No, we're always trying to do it. It's such an easy fallback.

So start.

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of us ignore the unexpected. When, for example, a project goes wrong or a meeting is canceled, what should we be looking for instead of just a reason to grumble about?

Yeah, I've got so many examples where I arranged to meet someone and I had loads of meetings all day and everyone canceled apart from the meeting at the end. I'll tell you one story. I might have mentioned it on the podcast before. And exactly that happened. I went to meet someone who happened to be a recruitment consultant, so it wasn't really helping my dad. I wasn't looking for a job doing consulting. Anyway, I met with him and we had a chat and I really wasn't going to go, but I did. Thought I'm being professional. Anyway, on that weekend he had dinner with someone who I actually know, and that person said, do you know anyone who's a transformation manager? Because I got a big project, need some help with. And he said, what about Gary? And he only thought about me because I had lunch with him or dinner with him, whatever it was, on the Friday before. And I got a piece of work, gave me 6 months work, a really good rate, and it was one of the best pieces of work I had. But there's so many examples like that where you just can't be arseholes. You just think, is it worth it? Not brave enough to make the move, but you should always do it because you never know.

That's it. And these things don't happen to you, Gary, because you just happen to be the luckiest man on earth. You are naturally open and curious and happy, so that's how you miss your work, right?

True. And we are the luckiest man on earth, George, you and I. We married above ourselves.

Is that true?

Absolutely true. Good. For anyone listening who knows that, that's—

okay, good. Keep that. The book mentions an interesting concept about holding funerals for failed projects to see what we can learn. Is that bonkers? And if not, how can leaders celebrate that idea of a small failure without looking like they've lost a lot?

Yeah, look, if you buy into the principle that serendipity is not just about bumping into people that are like, "How do I go and see this?" but it's about learning and Joining the Dots, or it's called Connecting the Dots. So with that in mind, what a lot of people will run a project and there's something official called a lessons learned where you're supposed to lift the drains and find out what could we do better next time. No one ever does it because they haven't got time. But there's real value in doing that because if you can learn from, yeah, where you're in down in the doldrums and have that growth mindset, then you're going to go, you know, I generally want to know what I could do better next time. And as long as you implement it, it was definitely worthwhile. Even if it took you half an hour to find it. Yeah, with some diverse thoughts from diverse people, even some of the naysayers. Get them in the room and say, well, if you did it, what would you do better next time to help us? Yeah, smart thoughts. I ain't none.

Excellent. The wind is picking up a bit, so I'll crack on.

A lot of hot air today, innit? Yeah, yeah.

It's coming from one direction. Anyone who knows you, Gary, will know that you are big into your networking. How do we as a culture, as a business,, as a company, how do we bake planned randomness into a company's culture so it's not just, you know, the extroverts who are getting lucky?

Yeah, I've been thinking about this. This is really frustrating. Now I've read the book and I've got the code, it's really frustrating me because so many people, either close to me or people I work with, or, you know, even people I've been different companies I work with, they've got it in front of them. They've got everything they need in front of them, but they just don't do it. If I speak to them intellectually, they'll understand that. It makes sense to be with people, to build relationships, to be bold even when you don't feel brave enough if you're an introvert. But there's so many examples of how it's worked and what a difference it makes. I was recently on holiday in Miami. I just read the first chapter of the book, so it reminded me, even when I don't feel comfortable, maybe I should speak to someone. And I was at a bar, so maybe it's not the right place to do it, with my wife, I may add. And there was a couple of ladies next to me who were sisters. And I thought, well, I just read the book. I'm just trying not to say, "Who are you?" I said, "What brings you here?" Wasn't great. Anyway, what happened was they had just come from the same restaurant that we had been to an hour earlier on the same table. But then there was a second meaningful coincidence was a few years ago we went on holiday in Hampton somewhere, went to some kind of '80s night. They live next door, that place. Wow. You know, so these coincidences are not that far away. So Yes, you've got to reach out your comfort zone, be brave. I'm not saying every conversation turns into something and don't drive people mad. So instead of like lifting up your newspaper on the train, or actually if you talk on the train, people think you're a nutter. But when you're sitting next to someone on a plane or you're in a restaurant or you've got an opportunity to talk to someone in the queue next to you, do it because you never know. We had an executive dinner the other day and we had a lot of a group of very successful senior execs and one of them was an investor and he told me that Yeah, he's got a very successful business. He was out playing either golf or he went to rugby. I can't remember. He's like, you what? And he met this guy again. He was in the queue. He met with him, they had a chat and they found that they had some complementary skills. And the short story is that they built a business together. It was really successful, completely different business he'd ever done before, but as an investor. And that was only because he turned around in the queue and spoke to the guy who was next to him. It's crazy. What goes on? Yeah, let's turn.

Let's turn. Yeah. I feel like you could write a book solely on all these serendipitous occasions that you've experienced. And I think it would be a great preface for it to be sort of saying like, no, It just does happen and it happens all the time. You just need to be open to it. So with that in mind, do you think serendipity only belongs to the loudest person in the room? Is there a case for that to be made? Should people who are introverts worry that, let's say, serendipity and that sort of, those sorts of coincidences and chance encounters in inverted commas, uh, are for the loudest people? And if not, how can the quieter members of the team connect the dots effectively?

That's a great question. I'm pleased you've asked this question because it's easy for us as extroverts, I think we are, um, ish. And, um, you know, it's difficult if you're an introvert. It probably scares the bejeebers out of you, just this whole conversation. But actually, creating serendipity isn't always a verbal thing. So let's cover the verbal first. I think even if you're an introvert, you'll just need to up your game a little bit. You don't need to go around jazz hands, but it's more about being brave than being loud. It's like if you're in the queues, being brave enough to just say hello, put your hand out, just say hi and do it. You can actually have the small talk if it gets you started. But there's also some nonverbal stuff that works. Here's a great example. On Friday, because I'm really excited about Serendipity, because I think I've got a code now, I did a post on LinkedIn and it got a really good response. And the author of the book, Dr. Christian Busch, made a comment on my blog.

What are the odds?

I didn't do it to get him to comment. I didn't expect him to comment. But now I'm thinking, George, yeah, we need to get Dr. Bush on the podcast to talk about serendipity, right? I agree with that. And what a great serendipity that through serendipity we've created serendipity.

What do you think? God, it'd be so meta, wouldn't it? I love it. My brain would explode. Well, Dr. Christian Bush, if you are listening, this is an official invitation to join us.

I mean, I'm not begging you, but I think it'd be a great demonstration of serendipity for your next book.

I totally agree. Um, this next question, I've got 2 more questions for you, Gary.

That's good, you do.

Uh, this next one is with me in mind because I think I've—

Oh, is it one, one for George? I've got this conundrum.

Yeah.

Love it. My friends. You've got a friend.

It is me. I often worry that I can't tell the difference between a serendipitous opportunity and a sort of a bit of a shiny distraction that's going to be wasting everyone's time. So, you know, something might happen and I think, yeah, great, I'm going to tell this to the team. And there's a sort of a lack of confidence to see that through because I'm just worried that people are going to sort of say, this is just a total waste of our time. How do you tell the difference? What do you do in that situation?

You're essentially blurring the edges between imposter syndrome and Ah, serendipity. I don't know what's going on. Again, the questions are really good, Joel. I think you had 3 Weetabix for breakfast. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, I think it's a really interesting question. I think the important thing to think about is that you're not like running out there throwing the bread at the pigeons. Serendipity, come on, come get me, serendipity. You're making it part of your DNA. Yeah, I use the word slightly. Be slightly braver to take control because you can influence your luck. This is the whole point. And therefore you keep going because it's part of your DNA. But like anything, too much of anything is like scary as hell, right? So you've got to know when to quit on something. It doesn't mean that you keep going on something and irritate people, but certainly if you make it part of your DNA, you're— just think of the word curiosity. Be curious, but take the interest in other people rather than just yourselves, because serendipity is not to plug your gaps, it's to join Dr. Connect the dots in this particular case. So therefore, just think of it as discovery. The more I can learn, you know, now and then, one and one makes three, and if it doesn't, it's okay, I can just throw it away.

Yeah, great. And I would say as well that we all know people who are very good at this, either naturally or had it sort of just picked it up along the way. It's worth watching what they do, like sort of trying to occasionally put yourself in their shoes or imagine what they might do in a particular situation. I know that's helped me in the past. Okay, my final question. I don't know if you're about to comment on that.

No, no, I think I'm waiting for your final question because I've got something I want to say.

Oh, okay.

But I might cover it in your final question. I don't know what it is.

You may do. Well, it's a classic wrap-up question. I'm hoping that this has inspired people to want to increase their luck. But if a listener wants to increase their luck in reverse psychology, by the end of this week, what is the one specific habit they should start tomorrow morning?

That's a great question. I'll thread in my other point I wanted to make. As I said, I'm kind of frustrated because for the last few years we've been talking about networking. You know, I'm a strong networker and it's really worked. Our business is built on meeting people and taking interest in others. So you've got to start somewhere and, you know, I do want to make it part of people's DNA. So first thing to do, I would say, is set yourself a goal, even though we just told you not to, to up your game a little bit. If you think of it as a volume control, just turn the volume control up a little bit because if you're an introvert, I'm not gonna go from a 1 to a 10 and think about for the next 30 days, whenever you have the opportunity, either standing next to someone or there's a chance to speak to someone, maybe just start with a bit of small talk. Gary told you not to.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

When you are thinking about, oh, I can't be bothered, or I know I should write a blog, or I should be more visible, do it once. And when you are meeting someone instead of small talk, maybe think about Is there a slightly better question I can ask than I would normally ask? And just do it for 30 days and maybe write down how it went for you and think about at the end of that 30 days what you could do better next time. And then the next 30 days, do it again. I think if you keep doing that for 90 days, it will become habit. Fantastic.

That's great. Yeah, I love it.

I need to look in the lens. I'm talking to you listeners. I want you to think about this. Networking is the most important thing in my life. And idiots. You just don't know it yet. But that's the how-to. The why is connecting the dots with serendipity. Not the book, but the principle of serendipity. Serendipity comes from you being slightly brave and ultimately influencing your own luck. So most people will let this gloss over them. Probably only 10% of people will do anything about this, but hopefully you are 10%. Let us know how it goes.

Thank you very much, Gary. Thank you for listening. I like that, like that final segment at the end there. I think we should do a direct to the audience section right at the end of every episode.

Yeah, so you meant a terrifying episode into doing what we say. Thank you so much.

Thank you, buddy. Thank you, Gary.

It's been great. Speak to you again soon.

We'll see you next time. Bye.