#137 Living With Serendipity

Rachel Denning (00:00.59)
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the extraordinary family life podcast. I was thinking of an experience this morning that we had when we were in Nepal. So we were over there and we were flying. We flew into Kathmandu and then from Kathmandu you fly up to Lukla where we were going to go trekking for 10 or 12 days up to the base camp of Mount Everest. But you have to wait for the flights from Lukla, no from Kathmandu up to Lukla.

because you know the wind and the weather you're flying up into the Himalayas man and these small airplanes and the airport is the landing strip one single landing strip in Lukla is at an uphill slant right and it's a short runway so you got to have visibility wind all that stuff are in your favor so you're waiting and we're waiting in Kathmandu and so we had a couple of down days and there's a few cool things to see but then other than that like Kathmandu is just kind of a busy dirty city and

and we didn't know what to do. So, and I'm, I'm, I gotta tell a story so I can teach the principal. So then I go out running. I'm like, well, I'm gonna go for a run. So I woke up early and I love this. One of my all time favorite things to do is go running in foreign places. And so whenever I get somewhere, wherever we go traveling, we'll get there. And I first thing just slap on my running shoes and I go run and I go explore. And I get to see the coolest things. And sometimes the saddest things and the most insightful things.

And I've run in dozens of countries and hundreds of places. And you get into these little, these little villages, these little towns in the early morning and you get to see things that are way outside of the touristy areas, right? And that outside what many foreigners get to experience. It's actually a really beautiful thing. I even in my mind right now, I'm just remembering this time running through this little village in.

Mongolia and another time in these teeny little villages in Central America and Morocco right oh my goodness in Germany oh all across the world these and through Italy up to my mind right now it's coming all these amazing experiences I've had by going out and running in the morning but I was out running that morning and I went and saw man saw saw some extreme poverty and some pretty destitute neighborhoods and apartment buildings and streets and situations and

Rachel Denning (02:28.878)
just some pretty filthy, sad environments in Kathmandu. And it was humbling and it was a great reminder. But as I was running back, you know, and here's, here's what's so cool. And this is part of this experience. I could have gone any direction. I left out my hotel and I could have gone any direction, but I happened to go this certain direction and then come back another direction. And right before I was coming back, I just happened to pass this little store, dinky little stores.

stuck back in this little building under a gigantic rat's nest of electrical lines overhead. Classic Catman do. And I just happened to see this little teeny piece of paper and it seems very coincidental, but that's what I want to talk about today. And on this little piece of paper, it said you can go river rafting. And it just caught my attention. I stopped. I'm like, huh? So I stepped in there. I'm like, what is this?

And they're like, oh yeah, we drive just a few hours from here and there's some pretty world -class river rafting on this massive river that flows from Nepal down into India. And I was like, yes, where do I sign up for this?

Right? It was never on the plan. I had no intention. I didn't know there was whitewater rafting in Nepal. We never planned on it. It wasn't in the itinerary this trip. So I was leading this big group up there and it just, it wasn't, it wasn't even on the radar. I mean, there, there, no thought, no intention, none, no plans. And that there was, we had the day. We had nothing to do that day. There's no plans cause we're waiting for weather. We're going to fly out. I think the following day I'm like, um, yes, let's go whitewater rafting in Nepal.

So I ran back to the hotel, I told the group of people and you know, part of the group was like, let's go. And we all hopped on this bus and went over the mountains and over the river and through the woods and just saw these amazing parts of Nepal, got in this river. This river was fast. It was just, the descent was so fast. It was a crazy fast river. And you could jump out and just, you're kind of floating alongside the boat in these currents and these, there was like,

Rachel Denning (04:47.214)
spin you and twist you and oh we just had the best time and it was like this jungle heat. I mean this cold water. Oh it was awesome. We had an extraordinary experience. Totally unplanned and unanticipated. Didn't think about it. And it all fits into what I, a principle I now live by and have lived by for years but was completely, I was completely unaware of it before. And it's this principle of serendipity.

Now the definition of serendipity is an occurrence or a development of events that happens by chance or at least seems to happen by chance in a happy or beneficial way. So it's like good things that happen to you when you're not expecting it. Somebody else kind of defined it as, you know, really great things that happen while you're pursuing good things. Right? So you're, you're following something good and something better happens.

that wasn't planned, it happens by chance or seemingly by chance, but it's in a happy and beneficial way. It's something good and wonderful that comes into your life that you weren't expecting. Now, I didn't think life was like this. I lived in this, I grew up in an environment, maybe you can relate to this, I grew up in an environment that was just, the mindset and reality of the people I was around was pretty much like, hey, life's tough, life is a grind, life's just an endurance event.

You know, pretty rotten and if anything happens, it's usually bad things happen. Can you relate to that? Did you grow up that way? Were you taught to think that way? Did you have experiences and kind of picked up that mindset? Are you surrounded by people who think that way? Like if something's gonna happen, it's usually something bad and bad things are gonna happen. And we can get into this mindset and this kind of worldview becomes your paradigm and your life philosophy that life's just brutal. It's just terrible. And you know.

every once in a while, you know, somebody throws your bone and you get lucky. And that was the world I lived in. And then I learned that it's not that way. But and I know this is going to sound crazy, you guys, but I want you to carefully consider it.

Rachel Denning (07:01.965)
Whether life is this terrible rotten thing where mostly bad things happen or if it's this wonderful adventure where mostly good things happen really depends on what we believe. And I know that sounds crazy, but I want you to think about it. And when we start to believe that we can live with serendipity, that life...

is happening for us and for our benefit. I wholeheartedly believe this. I teach it. And it comes up in my coaching sessions. This is a reality for me that God and the universe are conspiring in your favor. But you have to believe that. And you have to be open to it. And then this is how I do life. And this is how my family does life. We go along fully expecting.

serendipity to be happening to us all the time. And we plan stuff out. We plan these extraordinary ventures. And then we plan on having unexpected, wonderful things. Occurrences or the development of events, seemingly by chance, but we believe they're going to happen. We know they're going to happen to us. And they always do in a happy or beneficial way. And that story in Apollo is a perfect example of that. And I literally have like no joke, no exaggeration.

Countless examples of this where we're moving forward, doing good things and something unexpected pops up and you're like, are you kidding me? This is unbelievable. There's no way I could have planned that. I couldn't have dreamt this up. This is unreal. And it happens all the time because we believe it and we expect it. Now here's something really cool. The word serendipity was, it was kind of coined and created by a guy named

Horace Walpole in 1754. Right. And he he wrote this little thing called The Three Princes of Serendip. Right. It was the title of a fairy tale in which the heroes were, quote, We're making we're always making discoveries by accident and sagacity of things.

Rachel Denning (09:30.669)
they were not in quest of. I love that. Oh, I love that. Right. What a beautiful thing. So they've got these heroes and you're the hero. I'm the hero. Right. We're the hero of our own stories. And we're making all these discoveries seemingly by accident or sagacity. And I love sagacity. Sagacity is like this keen mental discernment. Right. Or good judgment. Like your mind is just alert and alive and you're looking for opportunities and you're attentive to you have this this awareness which you guys awareness is.

is really the first step of high performance and high achievement. You want to live an extraordinary life, you have to have keen awareness. You've got to be consciously alert and alive mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, you got to have everything operating at full capacity. That's my whole coaching philosophy is we optimize your life, right? We're optimizing every part of your life, your full optimization. And it starts with this keen awareness.

And so I'm alert and I'm like, and this running example, right? And in Nepal, I'm going out running and I didn't know I was going to cross. I wasn't looking for it. I could have gone any direction. I could have had any experience. The timing of the shop opening and I mean, there's so many things that the chance of that actually happening and opening up and there being the opening for that day and it all worked. I mean, it's, it's crazy. It seems so coincidental, but I believe in these coincidences, even divine coincidences. I believe.

in serendipity and because I believe it happens to us all the time and I actually believe we can be a force of nature and we can create this and I know this sounds crazy go with me here don't I don't want you it's not it's not it's not that far out there when you start well especially because your reticular activating system your RAS starts looking for opportunities it starts noticing things you wouldn't notice otherwise.

And this happens to you all the time, happens to me all the time, where you maybe start falling in love with this certain car and a certain color, and all of a sudden you start seeing it all around. And you didn't notice it before, but you're like, oh man, there it is, there it is, there it is, right? Or a new outfit, or something comes into your awareness and you, wow. And then you start noticing it all the time. You notice people talking about it. You start noticing posts on social media about it. It's because it comes into your awareness. And the same is true with serendipity, and you start.

Rachel Denning (11:54.285)
looking for opportunities. You start expecting good, beautiful things to come to you. And what you do is you start paying attention then, and you start recognizing things as opportunities where before you might have just walked past and not seen it as the opportunity that it is. And so you're the hero of your own story. You're making things happen. You're having these new discoveries, sometimes by accidents, but sometimes by sagacity. And it's things that were not, you were not in the quest of.

I love this. I love this. And I want to invite you with me to go through life and this can happen on on a daily basis. Like simple, simple interaction.

where you're just being kind. And here's how it works for me. You're out doing good things. You're going about your life in a good, positive way. You're trying to be thoughtful and kind. You're striving to be intentional and deliberate.

Rachel Denning (13:06.925)
You're on this quest to live a good life, to be a good person, to do the right thing.

That I think is the prerequisite. So you're already striving to do good things. And then serendipity starts to play in your favor and bring you even better things.

This has happened, like I've had unbelievable bursts of inspiration or insight from a really simple conversation of being kind and friendly to, I can think of one of a cashier. She just was having, I could tell she was just having a rough go. And I just spent just a moment talking to her and trying to bring some encouragement and a smile, trying to brighten her day. And she said some things that just,

just sparked for me this whole chain of thoughts and I went out and was taking all these notes and it just, just that simple conversation was a whole new reality. It's happened with beautiful friendships are incredible, incredible, quite unbelievable experiences have come from just interacting with someone being friendly or kind and saying hi or.

going out of my way to do something kind or thoughtful. And then the karma return comes back to me, you know, in massive amounts. It's like planting a seed, right? The seed doesn't just return one thing. The seed actually returns plants that have seeds in them that keep on going. And so the, I don't even know if you say this, the karmic effect, right, comes back just from that conversation and all of a sudden,

Rachel Denning (14:57.869)
You know, we're sitting there talking, they're like, Hey, have you been over to this waterfall or you've gone to this beach? Like only the locals know about it. Or, Hey, there's this thing over here. You really had to go check it out. I think you guys would really value it. Or you got to meet, you really need to meet this person. You should meet this person. And then that meeting literally changes the course of our life because we meet someone and it starts a chain of, of reaction where we have these friendships.

that now have lasted over a decade and we've met up in countries all across the world and had these unbelievable experiences and have cultivated this beautiful friendship with our families. And we've made decisions in gone places and made shifts in careers and unbelievable things literally because of serendipity.

and a conversation or a simple interaction or the choice to face a fear or choose adventure or decide to tackle a challenge or muster up the courage to have a tough conversation.

And I, I don't know, I just, I'm not sure how to really articulate this well enough that I hope you're getting what I'm saying here and that you and I, we can live with serendipity. We can be going along through life, fully expecting and even counting on God and the universe conspiring in our favor.

so that wonderful things happen as we're pursuing great things. Oh man, I love this stuff. I love it. And it's been true so many times in my life. And I want it to be true for you. In fact, I believe already that it's true for you. But I think you have to believe it as well and be open to it and look for it and recognize it. And don't don't just discount it.

Rachel Denning (17:06.093)
So this is one of my things you might be tempted to discount this. I don't know. It's just coincidence. Whatever. Don't discount it. Like lean into it. And as you're going about today or this week or this month and intentionally like like lean into your awareness and your deliberate behaviors, try you're trying to do the right thing. Trying to be a great person. Trying to.

engage in a really good way. And again, you got to be, I think you have to be, you know, positive and happy and optimistic and, and open to this like, Hey, life's life's good and good things are happening and good things are coming my way and life life is a good thing. I think you have to believe that because if you don't, if we're, if we're perennially pessimistic,

We can't see all the goodness. You can't see the opportunities. Everything seems like a disappointment. And what's fascinating is even some of the things that are seemingly disappointing or frustrating or something we really, I really wanted that and it didn't happen. If we're open to it, we'll see like, oh, that's because it was leading to a much better thing. But you have to be open to that. Sometimes when a door closes, in fact, this is true for us.

all the time. When a door closes, I believe it's because there are better doors, better opportunities further along, or it's going to require some more effort to get that door back open. And that benefits me because I grow and I learn and I progress. So my friends, let's live with serendipity and sagacity and let's go through life.

with total optimism and positivity and happiness and joy. Make sure there's a spring in your step and a smile on your face and fully learn to fully expect that great things are going to happen to you that occurrences and the development events by chance will happen in a happy and a beneficial way as you are striving to be the hero of your own story and you're on this quest and really cool discoveries.

Rachel Denning (19:28.141)
are going to happen to you and come into your life as you live with serendipity. Reach upward.