A friend recently wrote to share some positive career news—a glimmer of hope in what has been a rather dismal year. She told me that she had started chatting with a lady in a grocery store, and when the conversation turned to career, my friend asked the woman whether her organization was hiring. The woman offered her email address and encouraged my friend to send her a CV. At about the same time, my friend received an invitation to interview for a position—the result of her having sent out cold emails with her CV in the past. Her conclusion: "The universe is looking out for me, and I am incredibly grateful."

It reminded me of a concept I had read about in the book Write It Down, Make It Happen, which I covered in a previous Jenesis post. Author Henriette Klauser argues that when we have a goal, we can "prime the pump"—taking actions that will help bring our goals to fruition. She called this concept "polishing coconuts," having been inspired by a research experiment carried out in the 1960s. Scientists who were monitoring monkeys on a remote Japanese island noticed that they were washing sand off sweet potatoes. When the number of monkeys cleaning the sweet potatoes reached a critical mass, primates on other islands started washing sweet potatoes as well. Klauser opted for the term "polishing coconuts" (rather than "getting sand off yams") to mean activity in one area that generates movement in another.

Klauser shared the example of her sons, James and Peter, who run a graphic design firm. Each month, they write down their goals for the month, and each week, they write down their goals for the week. To generate more business for their company, they prepared a newsletter and sent it to their existing clients. "Almost immediately, we started getting phone calls," they said, "but interestingly enough, the phone calls weren't from clients; they were from people not on our mailing list. We were putting the energy out there, and the phone started ringing—from new contacts."

I like to think that my friend was polishing coconuts. When I spoke to her at the beginning of this week, she was feeling pretty demoralized by her current work environment but was determined to seek help. By the end of the week, her prospects had completely changed. While my chat with her didn't bring about the grocery store conversation or the interview invitation, I like to think that it was part of her efforts to polish coconuts. Our discussion might have helped her articulate what she did and didn't want, even if she had already been well on her way to doing so when we talked. It might have given her the confidence to know her worth. It might have re-energized her, giving her the pluck needed to proactively ask the woman in the grocery store whether she was hiring and to be open when she received the invitation to an interview.

When you're stuck somewhere, it helps to polish coconuts, which I think of as having a few irons in the fire. You never know which lead will result in a new opportunity—a big break that will help you get unstuck.