Showing Up and Enjoying Serendipitous Encounters

I booked a one-way ticket to New York not knowing anyone other than a close friend. I almost cancelled it along with my boyfriend, who couldn’t make it. But didn’t.

I asked all my Californian friends if they knew people here in the city. Most of them said no. One of them did connect me to a close friend of his. I knew nothing about him except his name. I met with him, and he turned into one of my biggest cheerleaders!

I reached out to Sergio Marrero, whom I found on LinkedIn and who accepted to meet me for coffee, although his life was full of traveling and moving events to be planned.

I randomly applied to get free passes to some events.

I assisted to an awesome healthcare related panel. Loved the speakers. Almost didn’t talk to one of them — I was literally getting out the door, and turned around to go back to him, not sure of what I would tell him.

This got me connected his company, and turned into starting the interview process with them.

I then got another pass for something even more random.

I wasn’t sure what I would get out of it but went anyway.

It was pretty average.

Then another one.

Turned out to be a transformative event.

Met with incredibly cool people who’ve been getting out of their way to help me… literally starting the same day.

… even when you don’t know.

Whenever I ask myself whether I should go to an event, I think of a story my first boss told me.

He’d been living for a month in Queenstown in New Zealand, and a friend invited him to a party. He was leaving the day after, and he wasn’t sure he felt like going.

And it could have been a lame party.

And it could have been tiring.

And… he went anyway.

Turns out he met his (really bad-ass-and-gorgeous) wife there.

So, of course, there are times where nothing special happens. I don’t always meet people I click with. I don’t always get out of an event feeling like I’m on top of the world.

So I push myself and show up.

If there’s one thing I’ve realized over, and over, and over again, it’s this:

Either in a good way or in a bad way.

It’s my way of creating a support system, surrounding myself with the people who will advice me, mentor me, call out on my bullshit, push me to be authentic to my values, get my creative juice going.

It’s also been one of the most amazing ways of expressing my own freedom. Until the end of high school, I had been with the same small crowd of people for 13 years. There was little room for choice.

And going back to my first point: I often ask people out for coffee with absolutely no clue what I’m going to tell them, or ask them. What’s the point then?

You never know what their perspective is going to be, or what might spark of that interaction.

The flip side is that I sometimes fall into the trap of wanting to go everywhere, meet everyone, with the fear of missing out.

Funny enough, when I have these thoughts, that’s when I know I’m getting tired and need to step back.

That’s when having a good night at home not seeing anyone, saying no to invitations and watch Netflix thoughtlessly feels really nice.

However, there’s no doubt about one thing.

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