conversation is an engine

Opportunity stops before it starts.

Again and again I notice friends and colleagues are motivated at interstitial places: those places between things. Between projects. Between jobs. Sometimes between spouses. Between highs and between lows. These are the spaces where reflection has a natural grip, before busyness kicks in again. These are the spaces that open the opportunity to go a different direction, because in that space there is a kind of seeking.

Motivation rises at an intersection, direction is questioned and a brand new openness to a different way can suddenly rise out of seemingly nowhere. Sometimes it can feel completely unplanned, but it is often the space itself, with the psychological or economic pressures on either side that suddenly make a new path seem right.

I encourage loitering at those intersections, because that is where people seek help. I’m a copywriter: I like helping organizations locate and move in that new direction. I like working up the words and ideas that frame the problem or the solution or the intersection itself. And beyond that, I’m a human with faith who likes to help people move forward—maybe only because I’ve been helped forward by so many.

Being available at an intersection makes it quite likely you’ll say something that has the power to illuminate someone else’s choices. And it’s likely your words or theirs will open up the intersection before you, too, the one you didn’t know was there.

Who knows what engine will be fired up by your conversation at an intersection?

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Image credit: johnny-cool via 2headedsnake