Life-Changing Moments

I often say that I do my best work by accident, which is true, and there is no better example than the afternoon I as a young high school basketball coach said hello to the most adorable six-year-old little girl. We were standing in the gym, she in an after-school program and I awaiting the bus to take the team to a road game, and unaware of the massive implications for my life initiated the following conversation:

“What’s your name?”

“Erica.”

“What grade are you in?”

“First grade.”

“Oh, do you know my nephew, Josh?”

“Yes!”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Yes”

“Who is your boyfriend?”

(Without pause) “Aaron Farley.”

Note: This was particularly interesting since Aaron was one of my junior high basketball players.

My life was forever changed. Erica and I soon became buddies. She brought me Christmas candy. I met her mother. In less than five months, I married her mother. A couple of decades later, I am the luckiest man on the planet and owe it all to that innocent conversation with a cute little girl in a smelly high school gymnasium.

Erica is a beautiful woman now who teaches/loves adorable little children as a career, and even though birthdays have come and gone (and another of hers will come and go tomorrow), to me she will always be that adorable little girl who changed my life for good.

Be careful out there today. It is entirely possible that an innocent conversation can change your life for good, too.