Earlier this year a thief stole a few belongings from the president of a cool technology company, a significant entrepreneur and inventor. One of the stolen items was a copy of the book I helped write (Conquering Innovation Fatigue by J. Lindsay, C. Perkins and M. Karanjikar, John Wiley & Sons, 2009). Interestingly, I would accidentally recover that book, and that led to something very cool.

Earlier this year I found that I could get some used copies of my book cheaper than I could buy them from the publisher, so I bought up a few used ones from Amazon. They were generally in perfect condition, but one of them was “ruined” because it had an inscription. When I looked more closely, I realized it was from one of my co-authors to the very business leader I mentioned above. I called and learned about the theft that had occurred. Bizarre.

This week I was going to the same city where both of these people lived, and took the book with me to return it to my co-author so he could present it again to the original recipient. This led to a chance to meet the original recipient of the book and have a genuinely inspiring conversation and make a valuable new connection. Also was introduced to an exciting new medical technology that I think help some of the companies we work with. Lots of fun.

Well, even annoying people can unintentionally lead us to valuable new experiences and connections. Doesn’t excuse the bad behavior, of course.

Bonus tip: If you do write a book, always sign the copies that you give away. This makes it harder to sell as a used book. 🙂