Serendipity

Serendipity is an extremely important concept for entrepreneurs. Wikipedia says:

Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely. The word has been voted as one of the ten English words that were hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company. However, due to its sociological use, the word has been imported into many other languages (Portuguese serendipicidade or serendipidade; French sérendipicité or sérendipité but also heureux hasard, "fortunate chance"; Italian serendipità; Dutch serendipiteit; German Serendipität; Swedish, Danish and Norwegian serendipitet; Romanian serendipitate).

In fact I found this article while I was looking for something else. There was even a mildly-interesting movie, titled "Serendipity", with John Kusack.

That "accidents will happen" is beside the point. Entrepreneurs have to be curious enough and open enough to new ideas and suggestions such that they position themselves to appreciate an opportunity when it falls into their lap. My first father-in-law, who was an avid and pretty good bridge player, often said, "You have to allow your opponents to make a mistake." It's like that with serendipity. You have to good things to happen.

What do you think about this? Read the Wikipedia article and the references cited there. Also Google it. And post a comment.

Entrepreneurship 2.0 is my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.