“Chance” meeting

I love it when “chance” meetings happen. Last week, my son and I were walking on the World’s Most Famous Beach (or as I called it in high school – the World’s Most Vagrant Beach) and I “accidentally ” bumped into a wonderful family from Israel. While the mothers English wasn’t perfect, we could easily communicate. Her daughters and their friend spoke excellent English and I greatly enjoyed our brief encounter. They were on vacation and of course I played tour guide giving them several suggestions of places to go and things to see that were unknown to them. As we were talking, a dolphin surfaced in the ocean. My son built a sandcastle at the oceans edge and the sun came out from hiding to add light to the darkness.

A few days before, my son had made a comment which I hadn’t thought about until I started writing this. He told me that he had been watching me on some recent outings and he noticed that I could just start talking to anyone. He further observed that soon this person and I would be communicating by email. I hadn’t noticed he was watching. It was a reminder to me of how important my actions are and how I have little eyes (five sets of eyes) observing, mimicking, and learning from my every move, whether positive or negative. Fortunately this was one of those rare positive moments which I was able to use to make a point about personality differences and strengths. I talked to him about making connections and how in life it’s not what you know but who you know. I talked about keeping a Rolodex of contacts and how to use those contacts. I told my son I was a connector – a person who could help bring people together. (BTW, a great book on the subject is Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point”). We have had some great conversations on this trip that I will remember forever – all because of a “chance” meeting.