Three books. Three different journeys. One thing in common: life teaches us what we didn’t know we needed to learn.

The holiday shopping season is upon us. Before you surrender to the usual frenzy of finding the perfect gift, consider something different: a book that might make someone laugh, think, or see life from a new perspective.

Best Chance Media presents the Accidental Wisdom Saga, a three-book collection that explores the unexpected ways we find meaning in our lives. These aren’t instruction manuals for becoming a better person. They’re invitations to embrace our imperfections, recognize the choices we make, and discover that a little wisdom sometimes arrives when we least expect it.

The Zen of Creative Imperfection

For anyone who has ever waited for the perfect moment, the perfect idea, or the perfect first sentence.

How often does the pursuit of perfection keep us from doing something worthwhile? We polish, revise, second-guess, and talk ourselves out of starting.

The Zen of Creative Imperfection celebrates the freedom that comes from letting go of the need to get everything exactly right. Creativity isn’t a straight line from inspiration to accomplishment. It’s a process of experimenting, making mistakes, taking unexpected turns, and discovering possibilities we couldn’t have imagined at the beginning.

Whether you’re a writer, artist, filmmaker, or someone who wants to approach life with a little more imagination, this book offers a gentle reminder: you don’t have to be perfect to create something meaningful.

Sometimes the best work comes from the happy accidents, the rough edges, and the willingness to begin before you have everything figured out.

Purchase the Zen of Creative Imperfection, a holiday gift for the creative soul who needs permission to stop overthinking and start creating.

How a Porta-Potty Saved Me: Making It Out of the Big Thompson Flood

The difference between life and death comes down to a decision you never expected to make.

On July 31, 1976, a devastating flash flood hit Big Thompson Canyon in Colorado. I found myself caught in a disaster that would change my life and how I understood survival.

The story behind How a Porta-Potty Saved Me: Making It Out of the Big Thompson Flood is as unlikely as its title suggests. When the forces of nature overwhelmed any illusion of control, an ordinary object became part of an extraordinary survival story.

Looking back, I can’t help thinking about the role of free will and the choices we make. We don’t control every circumstance that comes our way. We can’t predict when the ground beneath us will shift, literally or figuratively. But sometimes our decisions, instincts, and willingness to act can make a difference.

Survival isn’t always about grand gestures or heroic plans. Sometimes it means improvising with what you have and doing the best you can with the hand you’ve been dealt.

My experience in the Big Thompson Flood taught me that life can turn on a dime. It also left me with a lasting appreciation for the unpredictable ways we find our way through adversity.

Purchase How a Porta-Potty Saved My Life, a holiday gift for the survivor, the adventurer, or anyone who appreciates a true story stranger than fiction.

Not Exactly Holy: A Devotional for the Not-So-Religious

Forty days of reflection without requiring a leap of faith or a halo.

Not everyone feels at home in a church pew. Some of us have questions, reservations, or a healthy suspicion of people who claim to have all the answers. That doesn’t mean we’ve given up on searching for meaning.

Not Exactly Holy is a devotional for people who want to reflect on life’s bigger questions without feeling that they need to sign on to a particular religious formula. It offers a different approach to the traditional devotional: thoughtful reflection for those who are spiritually curious but not necessarily religious.

The journey is about examining our choices, considering how we treat one another, and finding meaning in the everyday experiences that shape our lives. You don’t have to be a saint to benefit from a little introspection. You don’t even have to be sure what you believe.

Sometimes the most worthwhile spiritual questions begin with a simple admission: I don’t have all the answers.

Purchase Not Exactly Holy, a holiday gift for the thoughtful skeptic, the spiritual seeker, or anyone who appreciates reflection without the sermon.

Three Books. Plenty of Accidental Wisdom.

What connects creativity, surviving a flood, and exploring spirituality? All three remind us that life rarely unfolds as planned.

We make choices. Circumstances intervene. We improvise, stumble, learn, and keep moving. Along the way, we might discover that wisdom doesn’t always arrive through careful planning or a perfectly executed strategy. Sometimes it sneaks up on us.

That’s the idea behind the Accidental Wisdom Saga.

This holiday season, give someone a story to enjoy, an idea to ponder, or a fresh perspective on the unexpected adventure we call life.

Explore the Accidental Wisdom Saga from Best Chance Media, and remember: you don’t have to have it all figured out to find something meaningful along the way.

The best wisdom is the kind you stumble into by accident.

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Published by Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

I’ve been involved with community journalism since 1968 when I wrote for my junior school paper, the "Tumbleweed," through high school and college and then wrote for the "Wyoming State Journal." I put aside my newspaper pen and began Boulder Community Media in 2005. There wasn’t much community journalism opportunity, so I resurrected my writing career as a screenwriter. My first short screenplay, “Stardust”, won an award in the 2005 Denver Screenwriting Center contest. I've made a number of movies over the years. Filmmaking is time-consuming, labor and equipment intensive. I recently changed my workflow to first write a book and make a movie based on that content. - Electric Vehicle Anxiety and Advice - This is a memoir travelogue of three trips covering 2,600 EV miles around Wyoming (2022) - Beyond Heart Mountain - Winter Goose Publishers released my memoir in February (2022) - The Zen of Writing with Confidence and Imperfection - This is a book recounting how luck planed into my signing a book deal after a 15-minute pitch meeting. (2020) - True Stories of an Aging Baby Boomer - War stories about living in a cohousing and lessons others can learn when starting their communities (2021) - Beyond Sand Creek - About Arapaho tribal efforts to repatriate land in Colorado (PBS - TBA) - Beyond Heart Mountain - Based on my memoir about my childhood in Cheyenne facing overt and subtle racism toward the Japanese following World War II (PBS - 2021) - New Deal Artist Public Art Legacy - About artists who created work in Wyoming during the Great Depression (PBS - 2018) - Mahjong and the West - SAG indie feature which premiered at the semi-important Woodstock Film Festival (2014) Over the years, I’ve produced directed, filmed and/or edited several short movies, “Running Horses” (Runner Up – Wyoming Short Film Contest), “On the Trail: Jack Kerouac in Cheyenne” (Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival, Top 10 Wyoming Short Film Contest), “Gold Digger” (Boulder Asian Film Festival), “Adobo” (Boulder International Film Festival), “A Little Bit of Discipline” (Rosebud Film Series), and two feature length documentaries “Your Neighbor’s Child” (Wyoming PBS and Rocky Mountain PBS), and “Serotonin Rising” (American Film Market, Vail Film Festival). He also directed and produced the award winning stage play “Webster Street Blues” by my childhood friend Warren Kubota. Boulder Community Media is a non-profit production company dedicated to democratzing media in all their forms - large and small screens, printed page and stage by providing sustainable and community-based content. I mostly work with community-based media producers, organizations, and socially-responsible businesses to develop their content via – the written word, electronic and new media, the visual and performing arts in a culturally competent manner – I’m what’s commonly called a niche TV and movie producer. Along with all this is plying my forte’ – fund development through grant writing, sponsorship nurturing and event planning.

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