who cares what I think

Don’t you just love stories of serendipity?  Ya know, those stories of coincidence, fateful timing, and six degrees of separation… Don’t they inspire you?  Maybe even give you a bit of a warm, fuzzy feeling?

Do they inspire you like they inspire me?  Maybe.  I know that I’ve always loved hearing stories of how things come together and how things lead to other things, and people lead to other people, all in ways you may not have ever expected.  This is the beauty of life.

Not only do I like reading stories like this and listening to them in conversations with people, but I also love when I can find one of those stories in my own life.  And actually, I find that my own life just happens to be filled with stories like these.  They happen almost every day, partially because I intentionally live an adventurous and spontaneous life, and partially because I pay attention to their frequent occurrences.  I could probably write a book about them all.

But this isn’t a book. It’s just an article, an article about one of those stories. This is a story about serendipitous timing and placement, about networking and being resourceful, and about having hope and faith, about that “what a small world” feeling, and about how all of these things came together to bring an unexpected solution to a problem that I faced.

This is the story of how I made plans to put together a huge art show and charity fundraiser event in California while living in Florida and how only about 45 days before the event I was forced to switch venues.

The original venue I had booked for the event required me obtaining all sorts of permits with the city of Los Angeles that were hard for me to secure at the last minute, with over 3,000 miles between me and Los Angeles City Hall.  And so, with only 45 days until the event I had to find a new one.  Living in South Florida and not being very familiar with the scene in LA, all I really had to rely on in my search for a new venue was Facebook and the internet… oh, and a tremendous amount of faith in my ability to navigate the serendipitous concept of six degrees of separation toward the desired solution.  Here is the chain of people and occurrences that lead me to the end of this story.

I was on Facebook and saw that my friend, JennyLee, had put up a post about how she needed bartenders to work an event during Art Basel, the yearly international art show in Miami every December.  Seeing that the post had been put up only about a minute before I saw it, I was quick to respond.  I was the first person to comment, “I’m Interested,” and just minutes later JennyLee sent me a message saying to speak with Tonya.  So I messaged Tonya for the details and she booked me for the gig.

When I went to the event, I ran into my friend Brendan.  We struck up a conversation and I of course told him all about an event I would be hosting and producing in January inLos Angeles called “The 2^nd Annual Ellen Art Show,” the biggest event I had ever put together in my 8 years of producing and hosting events.  I asked him if he knew of anyone out in the LA area that might want to come out to the event and/or help out a bit with it.  He told me to talk with his friend Jim, who I could find on Facebook.  I looked Jim up and introduced myself as a friend referred by Brendan.  When the venue fell through and I found myself looking for a new place to host the event, I spoke with Jim and asked if he knew of any venues that would be an appropriate fit.  Jim said he would send out some text messages to some people he thought would be able to help.  He got a response from a friend of his named Anna.  Anna said that I should check out a venue called The Terrell Moore Gallery and tell them that she referred me.  So I did.  And that’s how I booked The Terrell Moore Gallery (http://www.TerrellMoore.net) as the new home for “The 2^nd Annual Ellen Art Show” on January 28^th, 2012 (http://www.EllenArtShow.org).

Stories like this really help to emphasize my belief that we are all connected, and that if you see a goal in your mind that you’d like to reach, you can easily reach it by recognizing how connected we are and then navigating your way through six degrees of separation and staying positive the whole way.

You’ll get whatever you desire in life, if you focus, pay attention, and keep a positive attitude while you carry out a thoughtful plan that is open to change along the way.  Keep in mind how many people were involved in me securing a new venue for my event:  JennyLee – Tonya – Brendan – Jim – Anna – Terrell Moore Gallery.  That’s six.  Six degrees of separation.

And come to find out, Terrell Moore is not only the sixth person in this line of connected people, but he is also the first person in another line of people that will hopefully lead right to Ellen Degeneres, so that I can invite her out to the event.  As it turns out, Terrell Moore actually hung out a bit with Ellen Degeneres years ago, when she first moved to Los Angeles, from Dallas.  They’re not very close today, but that is obviously the start to a whole new chain of people that could lead right to Ellen.