Good morning from New York City. If you’ve been listening to Dear Constance, even inconsistently, there’s this one thing you certainly know by now. It’s that I have a lifelong fascination with mindset, inspirational speakers, quotes and, generally speaking, the power of the mind and the subconscious and all of that. stumbled on something in LinkedIn by Daymond John from Shark Tank. Of course, his claim to fame goes far beyond Shark Tank. He’s a very successful entrepreneur and he’s been putting out some great material around mindset, financial literacy and accountability. He’s doing great work in general.
He told a story about a recent weekend that he had blocked out for work. He had envisioned this weekend of locking himself in his office and getting stuff off of his list his entire weekend was turned upside down and his post was about how incredible his weekend was. His wife was to be the godmother of one of their friend’s children, and unexpectedly they invited him to be the godfather. Because that happened, and it was coincidentally his anniversary weekend, he ended up renewing his vows with his wife. And they ended up having a great date night to celebrate with friends who were unexpectedly in from out of town. It was just one of those feel-good posts. But here’s what he said that really made me look twice. He said at a young age, he learned how to accept the unexpected. Wait, what we say, expect the unexpected. And he said, I learned early to accept the unexpected. I just love that. I think that’s something we kind of learned at a young age, one way or the other, from the adults around us.
Recently I was talking to a friend about her daughter’s study abroad program which had been canceled. She went into this sad doom and gloom story. I thought it was so interesting that she was feeling so distraught over it because my first thought was, oh, I wonder where she (the daughter) might go instead of Rome. My thoughts went immediately to the motivation and resourcefulness of her daughter, yet her thoughts went more to the doom and gloom and disappointment. And I guess where I’m going with this is to say that I think our default reaction to the unexpected what we do with that is something that we can examine and perhaps rewire when things happen to you that at first glance feel like a disappointment or a negative surprise, what’s your first response? Are you a fatalist? Are you the type of person that wants to make lemonade our lemons. Do you fall into victim mode, or does it trigger your resourcefulness, your sense of adventure and curiosity, or even your sense of trust? I love that expression that things happen for us, not to us.
I’ll end with what is perhaps one of my top 10 favorite quotes of all time by Imam al Shafi’i. My heart is at ease, knowing that what is meant for me will never miss me. And that which misses me was never meant for me. Let me say that again. My heart is at ease knowing that what is meant for me will never miss me, and that which misses me was never meant for me.
I’ll leave you with that beautiful thought today. Until next time, from my heart to yours.
