The 'Guacamole' Moments.
Is this really freaking happening. Or have I spent too long in the tropics and my brain has finally been fried by the consistent heat and waking up the persistent neighbour’s roosters…? Those were my thoughts as I scanned the table to our team members… the twists and turns of their faces were all the confirmation I needed! Wonderment mixed with ‘what the hell’; divinity mixed with ‘did we just do that’; but above all else a sense of ‘holy guacamole’ is this for real?!?
Please allow me the time to set the scene and the context to the ‘guacamole’ moment… That been when we sat down to lunch with Richard Branson. It’s a short reflection about.. doing business your own way; the critical importance of making time to ‘vision’ with your team; trusting your intuition; and the synchronicity of life.
The Western team at Natural Instinct Healing came together for an annual team retreat earlier this year. Kate and I had just navigated through a BIG period of staff changes (never easy but always super valuable), and had finally grounded down a brand new team of epic humans to support our clients at our private retreat centre in Ubud, Bali. The team, as a unit, were still somewhere in between the ‘second or third date’ stage - we were loving getting to know each other but still trying to dig deeper to find out how we could support one another and thrive as a high performing team.
We’ve always approached business differently, or ‘business unusual’ as Yvon Chouinard from Patagonia would say (if you haven’t read Let My People Go Surfing please indulge!). However you really never know how things will land with new staff, and then the dynamics of an entirely new team. Seven years into our business journey we now trust and know what delivers the good stuff - so we inevitably always jump off the cliff head first and hope we can build the plane on the way down!
The culmination of an intense three days, and what leads us back to the ‘guacamole moment’ was a powerful guided meditation session lead by the amazing Nicole Rowan Holt. What was meant to be a quick one hour session, turned into an extraordinary 4.5 hour journey from which the entire team were quite literally channeling the business projects for our year ahead. And what kept coming up for everyone was Richard Branson; his epic private island, Necker; and just generally his approach to work and life. Repeatedly we’d refer back to Branson and he was undoubtedly the theme for the meditative session.
Half a day of meditation and channeling and we were all ‘fried’. So we jumped in the car without knowing where to eat, and quickly put it on one of the team to decide for us all, as brains could not handle another decision without a food refuel! Decision made. So we roll up at the great little vegan cafe, Peloton, as they are turning people away at the door. Full up. Or “Oversubscribed” is a better description (a great read by Daniel Priestley). For some unknown reason they usher our team in, and onto a big round table. And as I scan the restaurant so unfolds the greatest sign of synchronicity and confirmation... my darting eyes land on Richard Branson enjoying a leisurely family lunch on the next table. In Bali. At a random cafe. After all that unfolded for us that morning.
I’ve always leant heavily on mentors from industry, with Branson at the top of these. His approach to life and business has always inspired me. So the real clincher for me was that he was barefoot and spending quality time with family. Thank you Richard, for been you. And thank you Bali, for always delivering perspective.
A lot of elements had to come together. And there were a lot of lessons learnt. And some pertinent questions to come from it...
1. When was the last time you took dedicated time (out of your head!) to vision for your business?
2. Who’s your equivalent ‘Branson’?
3. How does your intuition / gut feelings direct your business choices?
Would love to know your answers, and hear if anyone else out there has had a similar ‘guacamole’ moment!?!
A new offering that evolved from our team retreat is the upcoming Elite Retreat Experience. We are so pumped to light this up from June 20-26th, in Bali. Targeted to professionals, leaders and high performers. It’s for those who know the best way to shape the external world, is to work on their internal world. We thought about calling it the Guacamole Retreat, but it didn’t have the same ring to it...
