Some of you might know that I got hung up in London this week, due to the Eyjafjallajökull volcano blowing its top in Iceland. It was a bit upsetting because it disrupted all my plans for this week, and resulted in a great deal of uncertainty about whether I would even be home for some important events this weekend.
In the end, I grabbed a flight home yesterday, which oddly enough wasn’t even full. I’m still scratching my head over that one.
But here’s the important thing I learned: The universe handed me a great opportunity through all this. Rather than focusing on what I had lost, I put my energy into taking advantage of the situation. I stayed with some colleagues outside London, met some wonderful people, built some relationships, and even tried a number of great local beers.
Last week I was able to give a couple of workshops on Building Your Resilient Career for a bunch of my great former colleagues in HP. It was challenging for me, but also tremendously rewarding to be able to make such an important difference for so many people. The energy was quite remarkable.
So here’s my advice for the day: Surprises happen, things change, and life hands you unexpected challenges. Within each of those lies an opportunity for responding in a way which will give you some value. Even if it’s just learning about yourself.