The sea air hit me and I was instantly in 2015.
Two weeks ago, I was in Maine, on a path heading down toward a lighthouse, the night before a keynote. The resort was about four hours from Boston, which is a long way to drive for a speaking gig, especially after a 7 hour flight.
For most events, the venue is a hotel conference room twenty minutes from an airport, and you’re in and out the same day. This one was at a remote (at least to me) golf resort next to the water. Same job, very different view.
As I took a short walk, the wind came off the water and did something I wasn’t expecting. It didn’t remind me of 2015. It put me there.
Eleven years ago I was on this same coast, doing something I had become far too accustomed to doing. I was running. Not jogging for exercise. Running, between lighthouses, because I had decided to visit all fifty states in a single year and Maine was going to get its allotted afternoon whether it wanted one or not.
I know the details because I wrote them down, which means the evidence is published and I can’t go back and revise it now.
From The United States of Laughter, Cape Elizabeth, Maine, May 11, 2015.
I sprinted through the wooded path, my breath growing heavier with each step. I was in pretty good shape, but the intervals of starts and stops were reminding me that I wasn’t as spry as I used to be.
The density of the woods began to dissipate, and I ran through an opening in the trees where I was immediately stopped in my tracks. A short burst of wind had struck my whole body, startling and awakening me at the same time.
I was in Two Lights State Park in Maine, and I was simply trying to see the park as efficiently as I could. I ran from landmark to landmark, stopping to take a quick picture and then moving on. And I don’t mean figuratively running as in being in a bit of a hurry. I mean running as if I were in a race to get from the fire tower to the playground to the observation point as fast as my legs would take me.
But the wind made me stop. It wasn’t that the wind was too strong—though at 140 pounds, I will admit I have lost to the wind in the past. But it served as a smack in the face to slow down, take a moment to appreciate my environment, and see what was in front of me. It was the Atlantic Ocean.
I took a few breaths of the Atlantic air as the sun lingered in the afternoon sky.
What I almost did instead
I almost missed this trip down memory lane (and life reminder) entirely. The event manager had walked me through the room setup for the next day, and then mentioned the path down to the lighthouse as a “thing to do.”
I said yes out loud but in my head I had already said no. There was a launch still running, emails waiting, and slide tweaks I’d thought of in the car and wanted to make before I forgot them. Fifteen minutes of walking was fifteen minutes of not doing any of that.
But then she added, “Tell me what you think!” and I opted for the walk instead of lying about it to her the next day.
And I’m glad she did. Because I was about to make the exact same mistake on this exact same coastline eleven years later. I talk about efficiency versus effectiveness in my programs, where the whole point is that we get so good at doing things fast we forget to ask whether they were worth doing. In the book I even admitted that I don’t always practice what I speech.
None of that got me down to the water. Someone I’d met an hour earlier did.
And then, on the walk I almost didn’t take, I pulled out my phone and started filming a video about how nice it was to not be working... which is its own kind of progress, I suppose.
I’m not the only one (I think)
If knowing a thing were enough, I would have walked to that lighthouse on my own. I had the insight in print, with my name on the cover. What I didn’t have was the reflex.
That gap is the entire reason I teach humor as a skill instead of an idea. Almost nobody needs convincing that humor helps at work. They need to be able to produce some at 2pm on a Tuesday when the meeting has gone sideways. Knowing that humor is a powerful tool doesn’t get you there. Reps do.
The reps here were embarrassingly small. One suggestion from a near-stranger, one walk, and one yes said out loud before my brain could finish the math.
Your rep for this week
Somebody is going to suggest something to you in the next few days that isn’t on your list. A walk, a coffee, a detour. Or a bit of levity will pop into your head in the middle of a meeting that might actually land.
Say yes to it.
There’s always a drive for efficiency and doing more. Skip it once this week and see what happens.
Sea you next week,
Andrew
P.S. The 2015 story is from The United States of Laughter, which came out of spending a year performing comedy in all fifty states.