Risk taking, trust, serendipity

“Risk-taking, trust, and serendipity are key ingredients of joy. Without risk, nothing new ever happens. Without trust, fear creeps in. Without serendipity, there are no surprises.”

~ Rita Golden Gelman

A friend shared this with me the other day. I love it !

Allow me to muse on this for a while, then link it into leadership.

Much of my professional and personal life is centred around Purpose, around the WHY of a country, a government body, agency, business, individual, and (of course) myself.

Many walk through life without clarity of their “WHY”, so it is of huge value to have that “North Star”, to know “I’m heading in that direction”.

One thing to be aware of, however, is that it is easy to drop from WHY straight to HOW and to look to therefore exert too much control over that path towards your North Star, to choose the route, method of transportation, schedule and speed of travel.

Be careful.

Control can be of value to create structure, stability, certainty.

However, too much control and we lose the ability to #Flow, to allow for serendipity, so I love the quote from Rita Golden Gelman as a reminder to find balance between Control and Trust.