The Shot Nobody Planned
The most powerful moments are rarely on the agenda
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
— Marcel Proust
What’s Your Juice? Unlock the Energy that Transforms Performance, Fuels Purpose, and Ignites the People Around You is now available on Amazon and now on Audible!
The Shot Nobody Planned
Christmas Eve, 1968. William Anders was looking out the window of his Apollo spacecraft orbiting the Moon when something unexpected appeared on the horizon.
At first, it was just a sliver of color against the gray landscape. Then more of it rose into view. Anders grabbed his camera. Click. The photograph he captured would become one of the most viewed images in human history. It is called Earthrise.
Anders was part of Apollo 8, the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon, and by any measure the mission was already historic. The goals were to test the spacecraft, photograph potential lunar landing sites, and prove the journey was possible. It had taken hundreds of thousands of people working together to get three astronauts to that moment.
Nobody planned the photograph. It wasn’t on a checklist. It was someone being fully present in an extraordinary moment, who had the awareness to recognize what he was seeing—and then the instinct to act.
The ripple that followed is staggering. That singular image transformed how humanity saw itself. For the first time, people didn’t see a map with borders and nations—they saw one small, fragile world floating alone in an endless void. Something shifted in the collective consciousness. Within 16 months of the photograph being shared, Earth Day was celebrated for the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency was established, and the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts were passed.
As Anders later reflected, “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered Earth.”
He went to the Moon to complete a clearly defined mission. He accidentally changed the world by being present for a single unplanned moment.
Anders showed that your most powerful ripple may not come from your most prepared moment. It may not come from the presentation you rehearsed, the plan you built, or the agenda you executed perfectly. It may come from a quiet, everyday morning when you said exactly the right thing to someone who needed it. Or from a conversation you almost skipped. It might be a moment you never saw coming, but were fully present for.
Four hundred thousand people made Apollo 8 possible. But it was a single person, looking out one window at the right moment, who created the image that outlasted the mission itself.
Most of us will probably never orbit the Moon. But all of us are showing up to moments every day—whether in classrooms, locker rooms, conference rooms, living rooms, or Zoom calls—that carry more potential than we realize. These moments exist for all of us … are we present enough to recognize them when they arrive?
You can’t plan the shot that changes everything. But you can be ready to take it.
Think about the most meaningful impact you’ve ever had on someone—the moment that mattered most to the people you lead or serve. Was it a carefully planned scheme, or was it something smaller, quieter, more human? What does that tell you about where your real influence lives?
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
— Simone Weil
Connecting this quote to the story. The greatest influence we have can come from simply being present enough to notice the moment.
This week’s Chasing Influence tip: Influence doesn’t come from the moments you prepare for; it often comes from moments you’re present enough to recognize.