If, Then
Lately, I have had feelings of amazement and gratitude.
Amazement for the way life unfolds.
Gratitude for the opportunities that have come my way.
This started when a friend of mine mentioned that he was going to be in a meeting with a CEO who was the successful candidate in a search that I had led over a decade ago.
The thought later struck me – if Cathy Bessant, the EVP of Technology and Operations for Bank of America, had not called me on January 31st, 2011, then my friend would not have been in that meeting last week with the CEO; neither my friend nor the CEO would have been there.
Cathy’s call to me was the catalyst for everything that happened after that call. I formed a team of colleagues who worked with the board search committee, which led to the selection of the CEO with whom my friend met 12 years later.
If I had not asked a colleague named Todd Drometer to be a part of that search team, then that CEO might not have been identified as a candidate, and made an offer to run the organization.
The CEO’s journey was launched by Cathy Bessant’s phone call.
That led me to think about the most pivotal chance occurrence in my life.
It is this:
If a friend in Jacksonville, Florida, by the name of Rad Lovett, had not called me with a question on March 4th, 1990, then I would not have made a phone call to a colleague who I thought might have the answer to Rad’s question.
That colleague was Jill Stewart.
Jill had the answer to Rad’s question.
I married Jill Stewart 18 months later – not because she had answered Rad’s question, but because I loved her.
Rad’s question led to a family I love, a new career, and a new home.
The passing of the legendary college basketball coach Bobby Knight brought this chain of events to mind:
If a gentleman by the name of Lea Booth had not ventured into the President’s Office of Lynchburg College on February 28th, 1976, and asked my mom, Ginnie, where I was going to college, then I would not have made a 25-foot howitzer of a jump shot with 1 second on the clock against Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers in front of 17,472 people at the IU’s Student Assembly Center on December 21st, 1978. This shot narrowed the margin of the Davidson Wildcats defeat from 39 points to 37 points.
Hey, nobody said that these random, chance events are the equivalent of splitting an atom, tearing down the Berlin Wall, or putting a man on the moon…
But think about how events in your life have unfolded…
It is truly amazing.
Then again, if a young man by the name of Christian Perkey had not emigrated from Switzerland to Pennsylvania in the 1750s, I wouldn’t be here…
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