How do I restart? Why did I stop?
The past 14 months have been a real tear across time. Thankfully, Eloquor has had a ton of work. Work has been more than steady. So, it’s a time issue. So many posts get written in my head but never make it to the keyboard.
In that time, we’ve made some amazing memories with clients and colleagues. I’m going to try to squeeze out time to talk about some of them in coming weeks. But the first memory lesson I want to offer is this: How to make a last memory… for your children.
We vacation now and then. No great surprise. It’s my recharge time. It’s also time when I can focus on my kids. Really pay attention. I can’t always do that when I have a heavy workload.
I always hope there will be something from the vacation that truly lingers in their brains. That thing they tell their kids about when I’m really old and gray.
It happened in June. The ingredients were:
- A long lead up to build excitement (try a full year of waiting for this one)
- One of the most beautiful places on Earth (Telluride, Colorado)
- Amazing music (in this case, an eclectic combo of bluegrass/rock/folk)
- Really crappy weather
That is all it takes to make a lasting and amazing memory in the minds of impressionable children. There we stood in the valley of Telluride, rain and snow falling on us, dancing together to Mumford and Sons. We looked at each other and all four agreed that we will never forget this one. We’d waited since June 2010 for it. Just didn’t know it would be raining and about 35 degrees.
Telluride, Colorado, up the Bear Creek Falls trail. Before the snow arrived.
All afternoon and into the evening, we kept asking the kids if they were ok. “Do you want to stay?” They were bundled up and covered in brightly-colored rain ponchos. We kept those lines of communication open. “Warm enough?” “Hungry?” “Need to go potty?”
At one point my twelve-year-old son said, “Mom, maybe we should stay for just the first two or three songs of Mumford.” Then Mumford came out. Half way into the first song, he turned to me and said “Mom, we have to stay for the whole thing.”
It will always be the “time we stood in the rain and snow in June to hear Mumford.” The music industry is comparing it to U2’s epic concert at Red Rocks (also here in Colorado) in the fog in the 1980s. Many seem to think that made U2. Perhaps this will make Mumford and Sons, although a spot on the Grammies certainly helped them earlier in this respect.
So, now I’m plotting my next family memory. Just as I’m planning out the agenda for a large portal governance retreat for a client’s governance team. What memory can I leave them with? What is that stand-out experience that they’ll still be talking about a year from now?
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