Last week I found myself in a deeply profound moment that occurred by pure, unplanned happenstance – which is my favorite kind.
It was the wee hours of the morning, sitting around a campfire on the beach with some of my favorite humans. Sunrise was fast approaching.
The epicness that was 3 days of Baby Bathwater Hilton Head was drawing to a close.
I didn’t plan to stay up all night. I don’t really chase those kinds of nights anymore.
The last time I stayed up to see a sunrise was 2019 when I was falling in love with my wife.
In fact, we were winding down the night at a much more reasonable hour when we got a call from our longtime friend, Cynthia – the magical behind-the-scenes orchestrator of the Baby Bathwater experience.
She told us that she had built a fire and had a feeling we wouldn’t want to miss this.
We half-heartedly got out of bed, planning to quickly make our rounds and get some sleep for the travel day ahead.
It was Baby Bathwater’s tenth anniversary, and we soon found ourselves going around the circle, telling tall tales of the long, strange trip since we met each other all those years ago.
Everyone told their own origin stories of how they came to be in the community. We recounted the misadventures that we had collected over the years of exploring the corners of the earth together.
It was like a real-time documentary unfolding before our eyes as we shared our tales of transformation, epic wins, devastating losses, and all of the weird moments in the space between.
Some of the stories had been told many, many times before. You know, the ones that never get old, no matter how many times you’ve heard them.
There was a singular common thread that seemed to rise out of each account: none of us were the same people as we were when we got there.
Time has a funny way of distorting our memories.
While some of the stories were pure hilarity, the majority gravitated to events that were some of the most difficult times of our lives: business failures, overseas combat, divorces, and challenges that seemed insurmountable at the time.
And here we were, somehow fondly recalling the moments that shaped us into the people we’ve become.
Despite the pain, the days where we didn’t want to get out of bed, when we felt the whole world closing in, each person there was sharing with a sense of gratitude, of pride in making it through, and perhaps strangely, a deep feeling of nostalgia.
And then, in a quiet moment between the tears and laughter, my dear friend Hollis (official Captain of Good Times) looked over at me and said something I’ll never forget.
“You know, I think we’ve made it.”
The sense of peace and knowing that washed over me in that moment is difficult to put into words.
I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced such a singular moment of deep clarity.
In that instant, the depths of my soul smiled with the realization that the truth is that we have, in fact, made it.
In that beautiful, peaceful, nostalgic moment around the fire, I felt, perhaps for the first time in my life, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
I realized then that if I asked myself, “What do I want?” the answer was surprisingly simple.
More of this.
Not just more stories around the campfire, but if I think about the last few months of my life, from family to my relationship to business, all I could ever want is exactly what I’m doing. Just this, again and again.
This is what alignment feels like.
Now, I certainly don’t want to give the wrong impression that I’m bragging or somehow better than you. It doesn’t mean that my life is challenge-free or that I’ve somehow fixed all of my problems.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I am very much in the messy middle of so many areas, especially when it comes to growing and building my business, which is a daily work in progress. Every day, I battle my own limitations, whether it’s self-doubt, self-sabotage, or simply feeling the pressure to move faster.
And it definitely doesn’t mean that there isn’t more to do or that I’ve reached some societally acceptable level of success that allows me to ride off into the sunset.
There will always be companies to build, goals to hit, and growth to tackle. But that’s just the thing – those will always be there.
One of the hallmarks of self-actualization is the ability to hold two beliefs at the same time.
I’ve done everything I could ever need to, and I have so much more to do.
I am enough, and I’ll never stop growing.
I am safe, but I don’t play it safe.
These dichotomies allow us to continue to work to become the best version of ourselves while simultaneously loving who we are now (and the person that we were before).
It’s the holding of two beliefs that allows us to find peace.
If you had a pulse in the last 20 years, that means at some point, you loved The Office. (This is not up for debate.)
And if you loved The Office, then you definitely remember the emotional last episode.
As the cast are doing their final interviews, there’s a line that gets me every time:
“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.” – Andy Bernard
It turns out, there is.
They’re now.
All the weirdness, the struggles, the dark times, the good.
The times that seemed crazy and impossible when I was in them are now just a part of the lore, the legend of who I’ve become.
And in ten years, I’ll be sitting around the fire late at night, telling the story of the crazy thing that happened in 2024.
Don’t miss the good old days by not recognizing when you are actually in them.
Because someday they’ll make a great campfire story.
To building the legend of you,
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