You never know who you'll meet or how...

During my COVID walk this morning, I was on the phone with someone from a federal agency providing a reference for a colleague. Very quickly, we realized we have similar interests - she wants to diversify her pipeline of recent PhDs going into her agency and I want to help PhDs from diverse backgrounds find the jobs that work for them. Basically, with our powers combined, diversifying the public health workforce. 

We may have spent more time talking about collaborations than about the colleague's position (sorry, Gabbie, but you got this and we both knew it). 

This just helps me know that all that time I spend/spent working on that "elevator pitch" or whatever and having the confidence to say, "Oh these are the things that I run and here are the people that we can help together," really wasn't just me playing at professional development as a hobby (though I still think it is very much that) but also preparation for these kinds of serendipitous encounters.
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Stay ready so you don't have to get ready.