Substitute for Andrea Bocelli

It’s February,1999. A man ran onto the back-stage of Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles. A woman looked at him with questioning eyes. He said Andrea Bocelli won’t make it for the rehearsals but a 17 years old guy called, Josh Groban, could stand in for him. The woman, Celine Dion, did not like the solution but the man, the conductor David Foster, convinced her to try it with Josh. They were rehearsing for the Grammy Awards.

Groban’s performance not only surprised Dion but also prompted the show hostess, Rosie O’Donnell, to ask him to appear on her show the following week, which then led to an appearance on Ally McBeal TV series. This sequence of events effectively got Groban’s career off the ground. He left Carnegie Mellon University during his first semester after being offered a recording contract and deciding to pursue his singing career.

But it all started because Bocelli couldn’t make it that day.

Somebody being late, an offer delivered to the wrong person, the right person met at a gathering… I can list hundreds of cases that can happen to you… tens of cases that happened to me. They are all doors of luck. Either we recognize them and go through those doors to catch a new opportunity or we might not even remember them later on.

If you want to see those doors… go “out”… keep your head up… and look in all directions, not only into the one you are taking… and believe that it’s your lucky day.

The song of the week: Celine Dion & Josh Groban – The Prayer (2009)