Latest news with #serendipity
Fast Company
5 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Serendipity leads to creative breakthroughs. Here's how your team can create it
We often think of serendipity as luck—a fortunate coincidence or a happy accident. But what if it's something more intentional? What if serendipity is less about chance and more about conditions? Whether it's a hallway conversation that sparks a billion-dollar idea or a side project that becomes your next calling, many of the most transformational moments in life and work are unplanned, but not uninvited. These moments happen when we build environments, both mental and physical, that are open to the unexpected. The question isn't whether serendipity exists. It's whether you're making space for it. The Case for Intentional Serendipity Take Steve Jobs. He famously credited a college calligraphy class—an elective he took purely out of curiosity—with inspiring the design of Apple's iconic typography. At the time, the class had nothing to do with his career. But it ended up shaping the aesthetic identity of one of the most influential companies in history. Or consider the origin story of CRISPR. The revolutionary gene-editing tool began with a casual conference conversation between two scientists from different disciplines. Their impromptu exchange sparked a collaboration that led to one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the 21st century. These weren't just lucky accidents. They were the result of environments primed for discovery—spaces where curiosity, diversity, and ambiguity could coexist. Serendipity isn't magic; it is emergence, and you can design for it. In my work with senior leadership teams, I've seen this firsthand. I once hosted an off-site where a brief side conversation during a break, completely off-agenda, led two leaders to uncover a shared experience that reshaped how they collaborated. What followed was a strategic pivot that the team had been struggling to make for months. It reminded me that the real breakthroughs often don't happen during scheduled agenda items; they happen between them. The key is creating the conditions where these moments can arise. A Framework for Creating Serendipity Orchestrating serendipity means increasing your exposure to diverse inputs, unexpected ideas, and interdisciplinary collisions. Here's how to make it happen: 1. Create Surface Area You can't bump into new ideas if you're stuck in the same lanes. Professionally, that might mean attending events outside your industry, joining cross-functional projects, or working from a new space, whether a coworking hub, a public library, or your favorite off-route coffee shop. Personally, try picking up a new hobby, joining a different kind of community, or reaching out to someone who sees the world differently than you do. Try this: Connect with someone whose work is completely unrelated to yours. Ask what they're obsessed with and why. 2. Lead with Curiosity Serendipity doesn't reward certainty; it rewards openness. In organizations, that means creating cultures where good questions matter more than fast answers. Replace 'Why are we doing this?' with 'What else might be possible?' Encourage exploration, tangents, and thoughtful wandering. Individually, follow your fascinations. Read outside your domain. Ask better questions at dinner parties. Let your interests lead you, even if you don't yet know where they're going. Start a 'curiosity stack,' a running list of topics, people, and ideas that fascinate you. Just follow the breadcrumbs and see where they lead you. 3. Engineer Cross-Pollination Innovation loves unlikely collisions. Inside companies, don't wait for an annual retreat to mix disciplines. Create micro-moments of exchange like shared meals, rotating pair sessions, or jam sessions across departments. Outside of work, host a gathering where not everyone knows each other. Invite people across industries, cultures, and generations. Try organizing a 5-5-5 Dinner: five people, five perspectives, and five curated prompts. See what emerges when diverse minds meet around a shared table. In an era of accelerating complexity, innovation doesn't come from working harder; it comes from thinking differently, which requires exposure to new perspectives. A Harvard Business School study found that teams with greater cognitive diversity solve problems faster than more homogeneous ones. Similarly, the World Economic Forum identifies curiosity, creativity, and cross-domain collaboration as top future-of-work skills. Put simply, the ability to generate new value depends on your ability to connect unexpected dots, and serendipity is the connector. Build Your Serendipity Habit The most extraordinary breakthroughs often begin in ordinary moments—but only if you've built a system that invites those moments in. This week, try one of these: Reconnect with someone in a different field you've been meaning to reach out to. Sign up for a class or event that has nothing to do with your job. Start a conversation with a colleague about something unrelated to work and follow where it leads. Serendipity isn't a fluke; it's something you can design. When you embrace curiosity, invite collisions, and stay open to the unknown, you increase the odds that something meaningful and unexpected will find its way to you. The next big thing in your work or life may already be coming—you just need to be ready to meet it.
Irish Times
6 days ago
- General
- Irish Times
If everything does not happen for a reason, then why does it happen?
I set two atheists up on a date. It was a few years ago, when the Covid -era restrictions had convinced us that we would never again meet a new person. Unless it was online. And we'd had enough of that. The two atheists, both friends of mine, met for a drink along the canal. They spent the evening discussing God. There is no greater power they both agreed. P, my closer friend of the two, believes that life and love are dictated by chance. Your soul mate might board the 7.15am train from Connolly to Pearse Street every morning. You board the later one. Maybe one day, you get the early one and meet them and start chatting. Or maybe they are sick and stayed home that day. You never meet. It's all down to chance. READ MORE P's date, on the other hand, believes in serendipity. Although serendipity is really just the romantic version of chance. So, take the above scenario, where in the latter instance this pair do not meet on the train. But a minor accident aboard the Dart lands one of the soul mates in the doctor's office, where she meets the other, who was kept out of work with illness. In the waiting room, he overhears her telling the receptionist about the incident and intrigued, he starts a conversation with his soul mate. [ I told my boyfriend about my soulmate, without registering his reaction Opens in new window ] The rest, as they say, is history. In the instance of my two atheist friends, the fairy-tale would become resigned to a brief historical footnote. If the opening scenes sounded like the beginning of a noughties romcom, starring Bill Murray and Kate Hudson , it wasn't meant to be. God had different plans in store. Or maybe one of them simply forgot to text back. Who knows. Anyway, this friend, P, and I lived together for a brief period and spent much of that time discussing existence, and much more of our time discussing love (to the extent that P politely suggested at one point, we could perhaps talk a little less of love). These are the topics reserved for people with whom you spend copious amounts of time, where the mundane need not eclipse the existential. Friends you see so often that conversations are conversations, and not catch ups. Believing in chance was a comfort, P told me; it removes control from your hands. Her admission reminded me of the 'humbling and character-building experience of astronomy' of which Carl Sagan speaks in his celebrated book, Pale Blue Dot. The insignificance of our individual experience is reassuring to many, while for others (me!) it is anxiety-inducing. 'Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged' Sagan writes, when we witness the diminutiveness of our home planet. Without the structure of a formal belief system, we have the freedom to create our own understanding of life. There is no doctrine to tell us how and what to believe; that might guide us or challenge our instincts and guttural value system. This freedom, however, can be intimidating. Choice is a scary thing. [ Illness management: 'If my condition does not improve, does that make it my fault?' Opens in new window ] I often wish, when it came to migraine, that I had a formal belief system to look to. One that could categorically assure that 'God does not give you more than you can handle', 'it will all make sense in time' or even the more kitsch, 'everything happens for a reason'. If everything does not happen for a reason, then why does it happen? Randomness feels a cruel instructor of fate. It was almost 20 years ago now that I received in my local church the blessing of the sick. It was not without hope that I walked up the aisle with my hands across my chest. Embarrassed by the jittery shimmer of hope I held that this teenage girl was destined for a miracle. That same year, an experimental doctor promised he would have my migraine cured by Easter time. Innocently and naively, I shared this news on my Facebook status with comparison to Christ's resurrection. (it didn't come to pass) More recently, a therapist asked me to outline my belief system. I began rather coyly but stopped abruptly when he began to interrogate. I didn't like his questions. I didn't want to lose this comfort to logic. My therapist, who enjoyed playing devil's advocate and readily contested anything I said, simply nodded and changed the subject. Perhaps he understood that, for pain without reason, the rational brings little comfort.
The Independent
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Contestant's final wrong answer on Who Wants to be a Millionaire sees record loss
Nicholas Bennett, a contestant on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", incorrectly answered the £1 million question, losing £375,000. He used two lifelines, asking host Jeremy Clarkson and phoning a friend, but neither knew the answer. The question asked which word, coined by a famous writer, originated from a fairytale about three princes. The correct answer was "serendipity," but Bennett chose "Yahoo." Clarkson expressed his sympathy, calling it potentially the biggest loss in the show's history. Despite the loss, Bennett still won £125,000, his safety net amount.
