On Creating Serendipity in Relationships
“Adversity is like carpet bombing false relationships…When you face significant adversity…There is a great sunlight that causes indifferent or false friends to scurry in the darkness away from you.” –Stefan Molyneux
“A body in motion will stay in motion, while a body at rest will remain at rest.” –Sir Isaac Newton
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When we become childlike by making space and time for activities and play, we can’t help but create great memories. It’s these memories which help us recharge, relax, laugh, and find that we’ve created meaning as a byproduct.
That movement leads us to better moments, and better moments help create the byproduct of meaning.
In our own relationships, we might bump into meaning while we’re on a road trip, taking a class together, on a double date, in a yoga class, building something, or discovering a business idea with our spouse and friends that we’re perfectly suited to pull off. To help apply this framework for making choices, let’s consider a simple equation.
Movement + Exposure = Meaning
To get movement, we need to not be afraid to ask our parents if we are allowed to stack our beds to create bunk beds. We need a willingness to open up and be ourselves in an environment, or during an activity, with someone we care about. Often, we find that trying to manufacture meaning on demand is impossible. But, when we dive into action, and take small risks, we find that we’ve given ourselves the exposure necessary to stumble on meaning. If we look back on all the happiest moments in our relationships, we’ll likely see that many align with this simple equation.
People often underestimate how movement and exposure are the single drivers to break out of relationship challenges or stagnation. Here are two quick stories about movement from a world class entrepreneur, Tony Hsieh, and one of the most successful angel investors of all time, Chris Sacca.
First, let’s take Hsieh’s story. He has started many companies, including LinkExchange (sold to Microsoft) and is most famous for building and selling Zappos to Amazon. Hsieh is in the midst of building a technology hub in Las Vegas around the Zappos headquarters. Many of the buildings and outside areas are strategically designed to spark connections from movement to “encourage serendipity.” The inspiration for manufacturing serendipity came when Hsieh was reflecting back on his life. He discovered that many of the most serendipitous events in his life came without planning. They occurred when he had given himself exposure to serendipity through activities and chance meetings. The meaning in his life often came when he was moving and had given himself exposure to new things.
The second story comes from Chris Sacca, who, at the age of 25, was in debt for $2.1 million, in his own name. How he got there is an entirely different story, but the amazing part was that he did not declare bankruptcy. He fought his way back to repay the debt. He did everything from voiceover gigs on Upwork to sneaking into networking events through the kitchen because he had no money to pay the fee at the door. Over the years, he continued to acquire skills, take on work, and chip away at his debt. He leveled up in his career as he went and became an executive at Speedera Networks (acquired by Akamai Technologies), and then went on to become the Head of Special Initiatives at Google. He never stopped moving or searching for places where he could have exposure to the greatest upside possible. At Google, all of his movements exposed him to landing equity in the company, which eventually allowed him the ability to pay off his debts. After that, Sacca took his movement and exposure equation into angel investing. His venture capital firm, Lowercase Capital, has invested in dozens of companies and owns large stakes in Twitter and Uber. Sacca went from negative $2.1 million to over $1 billion of net worth. That relentless movement and exposure to upside (good things) led him to build a heroic (and mission-driven) life story to reflect on.
One of my favorite quotes from Sacca is in regard to the types of founders and CEOs who actually innovate.
“…it’s the people who know to turn off the switch and go outside… it makes for well-rounded people, and ideas come from those people… its people who have balanced relationships that come up with the cool stuff.”
So often we conceptualize CEOs as people who are hard-chargers. We mistakenly think it is the 100-hour-work-weeks which produce the innovations we laud. In reality, these types usually burn out early. They destroy their bodies and minds and poison their relationships.
We can always give ourselves exposure, meaning, and a rewarding life story by getting out and getting in motion. It’s when we’re out paddle-boarding with our spouse that we have a chance to find our mission. It’s when we’re skydiving with a friend that we’ll create a memory we’ll have forever.
It’s not the 14-hour days of work that help us find our mission. We can’t find our mission when we’re sedentary, watching the same television shows everyone else is watching. If that’s all we do, we’ll end up looking back in frustration and wonder why we don’t have more meaningful memories.
When we undertake activities and new experiences that add positive memories (and endorphins) into our relationships, the quality of our relationships skyrockets. By keeping this balance, we effectively give our relationships the best chance to thrive over the long term.
Now, let’s jump into the strategy and action section where we’ll cover more ideas for movement, activities, and exposure that will help us find our mission.
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” –Confucius
“It’s not a failure if you have to resort to Plan B. Or even Plan Z. You will be stronger, happier, the people around you will benefit, and society will benefit from having toughened you up for what you now deliver to it. It’s the BEGINNING of success when you start having multiple plans.” –James Altucher
Fridge Lists and Advertising to Yourself
I was thinking of calling this strategy and action section, “Awesome Activities That Accelerate and Engineer Moments of Meaning,” but that’s just ridiculous. A much better label for the lists that appear below is “Fridge Lists.”
This highly technical term refers to the fact that these lists are best utilized when they’re literally written on paper and stuck to the refrigerator. They stare us in the face several times a day and remind us to stay in motion. The happiest people I know are (almost) always in motion. They inject meaning into their relationships and lives though activities that pump out endorphins.
Some of the things my wife and I have on our Fridge List of activities include these categories: Events, Conferences, Meet-ups, Learn, Adventures, and Travel Ideas.
Are many of the ideas listed below simple? You bet. But are they simple to do? No, of course not. Otherwise, everyone would have meaningful relationships. Getting moving is the hard part. It’s easy once we’re going. Below are some ideas on how to build a Fridge List.
Events, Conferences, and Meet-ups:
- What conferences are coming up which you’re interested in? Many of the big technology companies you might want to work for have conferences all the time, and they’re a blast. Go to them.
- Find people with similar hobbies in your area by attending a meet-up. www.meetups.com
- Speaking events and book signings. Are any coming up which you’re excited about?
- Comedy tours (Find a local spot and go.)
- Plays. Whether they are Broadway, local, or murder mystery dinners, get out and experience more in-person experiences that make you laugh and think.
- Find Co-Founders who you can build projects (and maybe even a business) with. You can try meeting entrepreneurial types at a local meet-up, or maybe try a site like CoFoundersLab.com.
- Concerts. We start with a list of the ones each of us want to attend, and then narrow our way down to the most mutually agreeable ones. I’ve found the best way to ensure we actually go is to buy tickets whenever we’re excited and have agreed on a specific concert. That way, we can’t back out.
A subsection of this list is the “Learn” list:
This is a list of areas that we want to learn more about.
- Paint
- Yoga
- Design/Coding. I’m a designer, and my wife is learning to code. This is one example of two synergistic skills you can learn with a friend or partner. Because each of you have two sides of skills that fit perfectly together, you can create more easily together.
Maybe for you it’s learning a language, a musical instrument, crafts, or how to garden, fix cars, or do home repairs. Whatever it is, learning something new stimulates the brain and widens exposure.
Physical Adventures:
- Take a drone out and film/practice flying. Record with a GoPro and tinker.
- Local gym classes: Cycle, Bikram Yoga, Battle Ropes, etc.
- Hikes (We list specific ones in our area and new ones we want to explore.)
- Paddle Boarding
- Kite Surfing
- Dance Class (Massive, massive points were scored with the spouse for this one.)
- Trampoline Indoor Arena
- Tandem Skydiving
Travel Ideas:
- These can be longer day trips, mini-vacations, or even month-long sabbaticals.
- Cross-country trip to explore new cities
- Snowboarding trip (Airbnb rooms for cheaper travel)
- State parks
- Highly rated Trip Advisor places you want to go
- Camping group trips (Group trips are a great way to save a bunch of money and hang out with select groups of people.)
Most people willingly allow themselves to be bombarded by advertisements all day long. Why not change it up and advertise to ourselves? Fridge Lists help direct and target advertisements to ourselves to create outcomes we want. Lists all over the fridge are great places to plaster advertisements, reminders, and ideas to reduce the friction required to get moving.
Also, when we’re in the process of finding new friends or building new relationships, having fun and interesting events already listed and ready to go makes building relationships easier. These types of activities and movement are much healthier than the usual happy hours. There are fewer barriers to connecting in a meaningful way if we can quickly glance at these lists on our fridge and send a text message or email that says:
“Hey, (event, meet-up, activity) is coming up on the (date) — you want to go?”
The Challenge
The challenge is to force ourselves to move even when we don’t feel like it. We can make it easier by scheduling things before we’re ready and cutting off our ability to back out or get a refund.
The more we can build our relationships with meaningful memories, the less likely it is that future experiences will break us apart. This also helps create the type of relationships that always grow, instead of slowly stagnating. We’ll never be at a place where we start a business, do great work, or win a mission-driven life story, until we build up the habit of always moving.
For a deeper dive into how you can create serendipity in your relationships, listen to:
