This past week we had our family here for Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful time to see the grandkids together and a great time to be with our kids. There was one unfortunate incident that made me think about the initial event, that led to the incident, 30 years later.
When my son was 11, he attended a party with his friends from middle school. They were playing basketball on a rim that could snap back. He dunked a basketball and as the rim snapped back, it hit him in the mouth and broke a tooth. The tooth needed to be extracted, and a flipper was put in place. The flipper was done wrong and wouldn’t fit, and because he was still growing, the choice was made to put in a Maryland Bridge instead of a permanent implant. The dentist had to shave his front tooth to make the bridge fit, weakening the front tooth. After several surgeries, he did have a tooth implanted and life was good. Until the Friday after Thanksgiving, when he bit into a cracker with the front tooth that was weakened, and it broke. The good news is he has an excellent dentist that will fit him for another implant, then he should be good. He has great teeth.
This all made me think back to the initial cause of this; the accident when he was 11 years old. Our circumstances today, are a result of the things we have done in the past, that have led us to where we are.
I have made a career in business, not by accident, but by something that occurred years ago. I was initially going to be a radio and club DJ coming out of college. The hours were slim, and the money was even less at the time. So, I was working at a gas station to supplement my income. I was mowing the grass at the gas station in over 100-degree weather conditions and my dad’s friend, who was a sales manager at a welding supply stopped to talk to me. He asked me what I was doing, and I said it was my job. He asked if I wanted to sell welding supplies and I assured him I didn’t know much about welding. He said it was inside and air conditioned, and that led to me accepting my first sales role.
While it turned into great career for me, it wasn’t the first seed planted. The first seed was my dad becoming friends with the sales manager. My dad was his customer and they hit it off immediately. I was fortunate to benefit from that relationship, and then build my own relationship with one of the best mentors I’ve ever had.
Whether it’s in your business life or your personal life, what seeds are you planting? I firmly believe there is no such thing as coincidence. What you do today, what you have done in the past, has a direct relationship to how successful you are. Take a minute to look back and connect the dots. You can see the pattern if you look hard enough. You can see the benefits of planting seeds and nourishing their growth.