After he returned from 3 weeks in Lyon, France, Emerson offered me his journal to read. As I read, I wondered about the whys of his ways. He chatted with Marina on the first day. He struck up a conversation with Rosina and Stephan at dinner. He accompanied Romain to his workshop. Talked with Sid and Jean Pierre in the park—just to name a few local folks. Why? After walking all over the city, why did he continue going back to Place Sathonay, rather than other compelling spots? The fact is, certain people and places catch your attention. It could be a lingering glance, a quick smile that you notice, a color that has special appeal, or the particular quality of shade in the afternoon that draws you in. We pick up extremely subtle signals all the time. Intersections occur. Paths cross. Contact.

On one of those spontaneous encounters in the park, Em grabbed his movie camera to capture the moment in action—create a piece of evidence of his chance meeting. But rather than Em capturing the details of his new friend’s monologue, in a matter of seconds, Jean Pierre picked up on all kinds of signals and began putting the pieces of Em’s story together. Sometimes, those pieces don’t quite add up!

JP‘s observations reminded Em that no matter how much he says about being from the high-tech Silicon Valley, he’s really a rather low-tech guy from the midwest, who doesn’t even own a watch! So within a few brief moments, Jean Pierre learned as much about Em as Em had expected to learn about Jean Pierre. And . . . coincidentally, Em discovered a few things about himself. Here’s the video evidence of exactly what happened, on that balmy afternoon in August when JP held up a mirror.

When given the chance, where do YOU go and why? What do YOU see and who do YOU talk to? While casually making your rounds, your daily meanderings of your personal sojourn, what is it that shows-up for YOU? Is it random? Do things just happen, with no particular rhyme nor reason? Well, we just don’t believe that. We see, hear, taste, feel and experience what we want . . . what we choose. The rest goes unnoticed.

So we invite you to go somewhere off the beaten path and pay close attention! Go alone to someplace you’ve never been before. Stay awhile. You might just learn a lot about yourself. Or better yet, ask what someone else sees in you—even a perfect stranger.

Our conclusion is, that at the end of the day or week, or month, you can take those journal entries, or simply the memories, and smoosh them all together. They will create a composite picture of who you were at that point in time. It’s impossible to fake it! The result is a personalized snapshot—time capsule. The simple truth.

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