I hate to differ with my fellow keynote speakers and their motivational messaging, but “Everything happens for a reason” is a statement fraught with danger.
These five words, in ancient times part of a well-developed Stoic worldview, are now spouted nightly, and unthinkingly, on reality shows and other bellwethers of our times.
There are a few problems with this gentle-sounding phrase. Most obvious to anyone who has studied or lived through a violent or economically tumultuous time is how it offers a poetically-phrased excuse to blame blameless victims.
More to the point here, it’s not going to work for you in business. “Everything happens for a reason” may work as a balm when you’re feeling blue, but be careful: Those first few sales calls that don’t work out will appear preordained and become self-fulfilling…instead of just something you need to push through.
And once you become successful, it’s even more of a hazard: It leads to inventing order in what are actually random events, to expecting permanence in what is actually a temporary, and fickle, business reality. To thinking the success of your business is God-given, and on a continuing, inevitable upward trajectory.
And, very commonly, it leads those who are successful in business to think that they innately deserve everything they have–and then some. Anyone who has thought about success in depth knows that luck is an enormous part of material success. Enormous. And to get more lucky, frankly, a good place to start is to acknowledge this reality.
