This post is part of the series: Jung for Leaders — The Inner Work of Moving People to Action
Also in this series: The 12 Jungian Archetypes | A Deep Dive into Jungian Archetypes | Jung’s 5 Pillars of a Happy Life
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Albert Einstein
“Coincidence? There are no coincidences” Master Yufu, Kung Fu Panda
What is your attitude to coincidence?
- Miracle?
- Sign from the universe?
- or random chance?
I’m on the train from Madrid to Barcelona returning from a 2 day Vistage group retreat in the hills outside Madrid. We shared stories about meaningful changes in our life and paying attention to the signals that the universe has for each of us.
There were many stories about coincidences that led to successful outcomes… in business and in life.
Coincidence? Jung called it “synchronicity”.
What Jung Meant by Synchronicity
Jung coined the term in the 1950s to describe what he called “meaningful coincidences” — events that are not causally connected but occur together in a way that carries personal significance.
Synchronicity is not magical thinking. Jung did not claim that the universe arranges events to teach you lessons. He saying only this: if you pay attention… reflective attention… you will notice patterns in your life experience that can give meaning and clarity to the choices you are struggling to make.
It is not necessary to believe in anything magical.
Paying attention and making space for reflection that allows you to connect the dots is enough.
Why This Matters
Leadership requires navigating complexity — situations where the information is incomplete, the options are genuinely uncertain, and rational analysis alone cannot give you the answer. In those moments, what you attend to matters enormously.
Intuition is a quiet voice. It needs a quiet space and a willing listener. If you are always in action and always pushing people to have 100% clear rationale, you become blind to the many small occurences that indicate that there is another path you are not seeing, or a dangerous cliff coming up ahead.
The leader who is only listening to spreadsheets is missing data. Not because spreadsheets are wrong, but because not all relevant data fits in a spreadsheet.
The sense that a particular hire is right even when the CV is imperfect. The intuition that a deal is wrong despite the numbers looking good. The nagging feeling that a team member is struggling before the performance data makes it obvious.
These are not mystical faculties. They are the output of a mind that has been paying attention long enough to have built a rich, mostly unconscious model of a situation.
Attention as a Practice
Synchronicity only works if you are paying attention.
Keep a journal of what strikes you. Over weeks and months, patterns emerge that you would never have seen in the noise of daily activity.
I am not asking you to become superstitious. I am suggesting that a life lived entirely at the surface… moving from task to task, from meeting to meeting, without reflection… tends to miss things that matter.
The answers, more often than not, are already around you.
Synchronicity is simply the universe getting your attention so you will look.
“Synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have eyes to see.” — Carl Jung
A request: Get a journal. Sit still and ask your mind “what do you have for me today?” and keep your pen touching paper for at least 3 minutes. There is no guarantee… but you might just find that if you create the space to hear… your intuition has something to say.
This post is part of the series: Jung for Leaders — The Inner Work of Moving People to Action
Also in this series: The 12 Jungian Archetypes | A Deep Dive into Jungian Archetypes | Jung’s 5 Pillars of a Happy Life