You should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky

To paraphrase pop princess Kylie!

Does everything you do have to be meticulously planned out or do you leave something to chance or luck? We are encouraged from an early age to make grand plans “what do you want to be when you grow up?”, develop strategies and check in to make sure we’re still on track and everything is under control. But how much do we put down to sheer luck? Can luck be harnessed or manifested? Surely we’d all have won the lottery by now if we were that lucky.

When you consider events that have truly shaped your life, random encounters that introduce you to the love of your life, coming up with a new business venture whilst stirring your latte in the coffee shop, or bumping into an old acquaintance who ends up offering you the job of your dreams, sometimes these aren’t just passively passing luck stopping by for a visit. According to Dr Christian Busch in Psychologies Magazine, there is an active element that prompted you to seize an opportunity that presented itself, and you did something with it.

It’s a different kind of luck at play here. Not the blind luck such as you happened to have been born into a wealthy family, but the smart luck we create for ourselves when we turn random and unexpected into something positive by our own actions. Its about joining the dots and making the most of what you are presented with.

According to some research the greatest opportunities and improvements, good and bad, are often down to serendipity. Good luck resulting from unplanned moments in which a proactive decision leads to a positive outcome. Suddenly the most mundane of encounters can have the potential to change your life for ever.

There are some who seem to be luckier than others, and they may have somehow developed an intuitive muscle for the unexpected. We can underestimate how predictable the unexpected really is. True learning and success isn’t about having a linear process and controlling the exact outcome. Instead of having an exact plan, we need to learn to join the dots.

Successful people tend to have a combination of planned direction but with some freedom to accept the unknown. Its not about letting go of control but gaining influence over uncertainty to be able to use it to your advantage.

Accepting unexpected changes, limitations and imperfections allows you to reframe situations to see an opportunity where others may just see a problem. Busch offers five ways to cultivate serendipity into your everyday life:

Set hooks – whenever you communicate with someone, case a few hooks: concrete examples of your current interests, hobbies and vocation. This maximised the change you and the other person coincidentally latching onto common grounds and shared passions.
Change the way you ask questions – imagine meeting someone new at a dinner party. You might go into autopilot and ask what they do. This limits the other persons response but positioning yourself for smart luck means asking more open-ended questions that open up conversations that might lead to something more intriguing.
Nurture and expand your network – technology fosters serendipitous networking from home but setting “serendipity bombs”. Write honest, speculate message to people you admire to share you they have already shaped your trajectory, and open up a dialogue about how they can be part of your future journey. Follow people your respect and make a point of providing thoughtful, relevant commentary on what they have posted.
Reflect on incidences when serendipity could have happened but didn’t – perhaps you bumped into someone but didn’t start a conversation with them. Perhaps you had an idea in a meeting but didn’t share it. Identify what held you back and tackle it.
Write down three thing you would do if you had no constraints and you couldn’t fail – write down the reasons why you think you cannot reframe the situation. Then the reasons why or how you can. Then act on them and make it happen.

Serendipity can be a profound source of moments that make life meaningful and turn unexpected potential threats into a source of opportunity. Every chance encounter is an opportunity to find love, make new friends, forge a new interest, get that career started.

Go out and grab it by the horns.

Are you asking the right questions?

I read an article by Mark and Crystal Hansen about how to be better at asking questions and why it matters. In it, they suggested asking the right questions helps us to strive to become better, and when we strive to become better, everything around us becomes better too. Asking the right questions helps us to discover and transcend our limitations. Asking the right questions will help you to discover what your expectations are for your life, what your expectations are for others and your highest potential and service to humanity.

Asking questions affords continual advancement to the next step toward manifesting your dreams for a better life or better way of living. When we ask, inquire and question each other and allow the answers to come it can bring new understanding, or give feedback to improve a relationship, a project or personal goal.

But how do you know you’re asking the right kind of questions?

The Hansen’s offered four elements to put into practice to help strengthen your results:

Belief– believe and trust the answer is there somewhere, waiting for you. Expect it.
Action – take steps in the direction of your dreams even if you don’t have all the answers yet. Positive motion will help prompt more questions and open you up to being curious so your requests and inquiries become bigger and more relevant.
Visualisation – your imagination can create positive images and feelings around the answers you are seeking. Let yourself create mental pictures of your issues being resolved, relationships healed, wishes come true and dreams fulfilled.
Prayer –there is a wisdom in your practice that will become your greatest ally in fulfilling your destiny.

They then suggest journaling your answers the following questions:

Define your desires – what is it you really want? More cooperation? More intimacy? More friendship? More riches? More adventure? More love?

Connect to your core beliefs – what is driving your current state? Do you think you’re not worthy? Do you think your happiness is yours or someone else’s responsibility? Do you believe you deserve to have your greatest desires fulfilled?

Understanding someone else’s core beliefs – it is important to understand where someone else is coming from. How can you better understand other people’s core beliefs who matter to you? Asking is the key to understanding the people who are important in your personal or work life.

Honour your values – what is it that you would not be willing to compromise on, ever? Define it so you can ask for more understanding and honouring of your values when your values are challenged.

Heal misunderstandings – what does it cost you to hang on to the hurt? What do you gain by releasing it and starting over with a clean slate? What steps do you need to take for your to release this?

Discover the truth – everyone’s experiences are different. What we think is the truth is our own subjective view based on our own experiences. Ask others what their experience or reality is and have a better understanding of what really happened.

Define the next steps – where do you want to go to from here? What do you want to get out of the experience? What do you see as the best resolution or conclusion? Where od you see yourself in a year, or five years from now?

Is this the key to getting better, smarter, wiser, faster and strong in life?

What a busy day

Following on from the events of Friday, Saturday was just as manic.

I was due to be helping C with his #bellringing students learning Stedman Doubles but no sooner had we got settled my phone rang. This was the first of 5 conversations with different media throughout the day. I wasn’t much help to C at all.

I ended up giving one interview over Zoom, 2 others over the phone at home, and one whilst I was actually walking into the city to toll our bell for Prince Philip, which was going out live. I sounded really out of breath. The wind was making my eyes water which in turn made my nose run. I desperately wanted to sniff but didn’t think that would sound pleasant over the radio.

Then I tolled our 10th bell, half muffled 99 times, once for each year of HRH’s extraordinary life. There were a few more people in the cathedral when I came down than when I went up so I hope the ringing brought them there.

Back home to some more emails and another phone call from the press, who wanted to quote a unique headline but I told her that tolling a bell when someone dies is not unique. She laughed and said that I’d just ruined her headline but she was glad she checked.

I had a couple of hours rest before gearing up for Bellringers Question Time. This is where we have a panel who answer questions they’ve never seen before, some serious, some silly. I had organised the event and invited some ringing friends to be on the panel. I was so pleased with how it went. They were interesting and entertaining, as I knew they would be. I thank them wholeheartedly for saying yes when I asked them.

The session was recorded, so after it ended I needed to edit it slightly, then upload it to our Youtube channel. This took about an hour or so.

I slept well last time!

Quick fire round

I’m not one for small talk. I find it difficult to think of what to say. Its probably something to do with my introversion. I find it frustrating when meetings start with lots of random conversations that have nothing to do with the meeting agenda. I understand the purpose. An ice breaker, or checking in on others wellbeing and so on. But then I get to the point of “can we get on with it now please”?

Just for funsies I was having a play with a random conversation starter generator to see if they were the sort of things you could talk about in a room full of strangers, or at the beginning of a meeting whilst everyone is getting settled. Try some out. Here are the first 10 questions the random conversation starter presented to me.

What is your biggest fear? Losing my child.

What is your dream job? Not sure really. Like making cakes but not sure if I’d want to do it for a living. Thought about opening a cafe once. I guess not needing to have a job might be a dream.

If you were asked to teach a class, what would you teach? Baking.

Do you prefer baths or showers? Bit personal that one. Showers.

If you could choose any era to live in what would it be? Toss up between Tudor, but only if I was at Court. Or early 1900s when so much exploration and new invention happening.

What is one thing that you would like to change about the world? I suppose I ought to go for something like ending poverty or hunger or climate crisis but a big thing that gets me riled is hypocrisy.

How would you know you were in love? If I couldn’t stop thinking about someone or wait to see them and my heart started beating faster.

What is the longest amount of time you’ve slept for? 2 days. I went home from work ill on a Monday and woke up on the Wednesday.

Do you recycle? Yes!!!!

Do you prefer cats or dogs? Neither but if pushed on the subject dogs. Cats are selfish and mean.

Hmmm. Some of them are hardly conversation starters as they have a one word response. I suppose the idea is to then ask follow up questions but for some conversation done. I’m not sure that some of them would be appropriate at the office either but hey, if the conversation stops, I’ll throw one in and see what happens. 🤣

What’s the weirdest question you’ve ever been asked when the conversation got stuck?