One of the great joys of browsing a good bookstore is the experience of finding the perfect book you weren’t looking for. You may have stopped by to pick out a thriller, but you ended up walking out with a history of Pompeii. In an age where targeted online advertising and sophisticated shopping algorithms attempt to push at us exactly what our browsing and search histories believe we’re looking for, there is nothing quite to satisfying as finding the perfect thing we didn’t even know we wanted.
There’s a lot to learn from the serendipity of a visit to the bookstore. We don’t often appreciate the magic of browsing towards our goals. We desire, we plan, we act on the plan. Sometimes we believe so firmly in the perfection of our planning that we ignore when our unconscious instincts push us along a better path. It’s important to recognize when we need to release our grip on “how it should go” to “how it’s going.”
Most successful start-up founders will tell you that their original ideas were not the ones which became their blockbuster home runs. Many have had to “pivot” and reinvent themselves along an unexpected pathway to growth.
Do not rule out the lessons of browsing your way to your goal. Be open to the organic process and the unseen forces which help you along when you’re not 100% certain how to help yourself. When your “pivot” moment arrives, don’t hesitate to embrace it.
