I strongly believe in taking time to mark moments.
As I wrote about two days ago, I am flying home to Cayman in a few days to show my respect to Gene Thompson and his family at his funeral, a Caymanian who has made a lasting impact on our country and whose life we will celebrate as a Cayman community at the funeral.
As I look back on life so far, I absolutely appreciate every time I made a conscious decision to slow down, take time, to mark moments of all kinds, including such different ones as. on the one hand, remembering and celebrating the memory of someone we have lost, and on the other hand, celebrating a great success in business.
Today I then return to the theme of taking time to celebrate, one I have noted repeatedly in my 1800+ posts on this blog. Recently a long-standing client had their latest quarterly earnings call, this one including the fiscal year results. They not only had a record quarter and record year, but the numbers were simply stratospherically good! I then emailed one of my contacts about something and, before getting to the matter at hand, began with:
First, such a great moment in time with the record results, I trust people are stopping to celebrate and mark the moment.
They replied:
The numbers are fantastic so we’ve been enjoying it for a minute but are also being realistic to not let the foot off the gas.
I then replied to suggest, gently:
I do encourage taking time to mark moments, so perhaps longer than “for a minute”
They appreciated the reminder to “take time to acknowledge the accomplishment.”
Whatever the moment, mark it. Take time to honour, respect, and yes, celebrate what has happened, whether it be the life of someone who has left us, or a business where the people dedicated to it have achieved record results.
Moments matter. Take time to mark them.