My Story

The Origins of Serendipity Stories and Practicing Serendipitist

I was taking a walk, as I often do, deliberately not thinking about work or people, projects, or anything specific, and I had one of those moments, you know, the ones where everything suddenly clicks into place. The puzzle pieces in my mind rearranged themselves into perfect clarity.

After years of working in design, strategy, and corporate innovation, I’d experienced this pattern countless times: the swirling of ideas and insights followed by moments of breakthrough or connection when I least expected it. But this time, instead of just accepting these ‘aha moments’ as random occurrences, I found myself wondering: what if they weren’t random at all? What if it wasn’t chance or coincidence? What if there was something more at work?

These questions piqued my curiosity, and I took a deep dive into existing work and research on the subject. What exactly were these moments– these unexpected, “random” moments of chance or coincidence? Why do they happen at the most unexpected times, and how might I create the possibility for them to happen more often?

Researchers and authors such as Christopher Busch, Nicholas Dew, Samantha Copeland, Lori McCay-Peet and Elaine G. Toms, and Ohid Yaqub are just a few of the experts who have been working in this field for the last decade or so.

In reading their work and the work of others, I realized something that changed the game. These moments of clarity I’d been chasing weren’t just beautiful…