Serendipity in Row 14

So there I was, planning to read one of my new Christmas books, or at least get a good start on it, as I boarded my Porter Airlines flight from Halifax to Toronto one day in February.  I had no plans to do anything more than politely acknowledge my seatmate.

We both greeted each other, and I noticed she had some reading material about workplace demographics… so I said to her “ What kind of work do you do?” and she responded “I’m a career consultant and coach”, which is when I probably looked somewhat dumbfounded because she asked me what I do, and when I replied that I too am a career and executive coach, we felt like we had just met a kindred spirit!

We talked the entire flight up to Toronto.

We each told our stories of how we found coaching, our specialty areas for the work we do, how we find our clients or how they find us, and we shared resources and ideas and books and names of other people we each should meet.

Got to be one of my best flights ever.

Of the 40 people on that flight, I’d be willing to bet that no one else on that flight was a coach.  What are the chances that the two people with the most in common, got to sit together?

I love serendipity.

I love meeting people who share common interests with me.

I love making new friends.

Just imagine if I had chosen to keep my mouth shut before we took off, and had NOT asked her what kind of work she did?  Imagine the lost experience.  For me, I always step into a new conversation rather than shy away from it.  It’s just my extroverted nature.  Not for everyone, I get that.  But I know my life is richer because of those conversations I enter into.

And my new book?  Never even cracked it open.  I’ll have to save it for another time!!!