While we are busy planning and going about our lives, unknown factors, seemingly out of nowhere, come into the picture.  There are circumstances, both good and bad, that we cannot foresee nor predict….the x factor.

In business, as in life, people’s lives are influenced by occurrences that were NOT part of the plan. Things we can neither explain or know of in advance.   A sudden health crisis.  Winning the lottery.  An opportunity never seen that suddenly shifts a company into the spotlight.  Even the flavors of food are said to have qualities that encompass more than our sense of taste, called the X Factor, according to “The Flavor Bible.”

It is probably due to our desire to control so much of our lives and businesses,  that the x factor is not always welcome.  Most people fear the unknown.  Why I even had some anxiety as to how I would handle writing an entry about the letter x given it’s  limited word choices. 

There are so many cases where if we take a really close look at the situation, we will find that the x factor, while unknown, has  played an important role.  How did Oprah rise to such fame from her humble beginnings?  What explains the “Miracle on Ice,” experienced by the 1980 Olympic gold medal winning hockey team?  How did the plane, piloted by Captain Sully,  land so perfectly on the Hudson River last year when the engines ceased?  How did Lance Armstrong beat his devastating cancer and still go on to be the most decorated bicyclist ever?

So many unexplainable things happen everyday…

We must learn to adapt to these unplanned occurrences.

Though hard to define…

The X factor is a powerful game changer!