I Had a Vision

I witnessed the most amazing thing yesterday.

Sam and I often find ourselves thinking in synchronicity. Sparkly little thoughts seem to jump from my head to hers and hers to mine when we aren’t even in the same room. It’s thrilling and weird at the same time. 

On Sunday I had an idea that we should create what you might call a Vision Board for the CWC HQ office.

Funny aside: My kids prefer to call it a “Future Board” as they believe these little scraps, cut from magazines and stuck on with a glue-stick, are completely magical. They think that everything they put on them comes true. Which of course IS true.

So Future Board, Vision Board, whatever you want to call the thing- I had an idea that it would somehow help to clarify my thoughts and to get a clear picture of what I’d like to step into next. I’m a great starter, and sometimes all of the ideas swimming around in my head can be drowned out if I don’t create an anchor for them to safely harbour. 

Of course I made Nath go to the shops and buy all.of.the.home.mags at once. 

The process for me was to sit down daintily on my outdoor chair, with some scissors and a cup of tea in the finest china, whilst I carefully turned the glossy pages. Sometimes I would gaze at a picture for a while, and others I would fold a corner of a page to remind me to come back later for further investigation. After going through six magazines twice I had cut out five pictures, with notes on another fifteen or so things that the mags had inspired, that I could then go and find on Pinterest to get the precise picture of the accoutrement. The process was gonna take a while. And this is without even getting to the stage of figuring out how to arrange it all on the board.

Unbeknownst to me, 40kms away Sam was listening to a Podcast that suggested the very same thing. And on the way to CWC HQ she was wondering if she should pop into the Newsagent and grab some magazines for us to work on. 

But all of this was not the amazing thing.

The amazing thing was this: 

Sam stood at the bench, no ceremonial blessing of the magazines, no fancy teacup and nary a pair of scissors in sight. She blustered in like a hurricane and said, “Hi Dogs, Hi Kids (in that order), I thought we could do a Vision Board, oh good, you have magazines already. Go Figure.” 

And with that she started flipping through, and wantonly ripping out pages. At each rip I’d ask, “What do you like in that pic?” 

For example; in a pic of a large bench top with a green smoothie on it, and she’d say, 

“The smoothie. I think we should have healthy foods for our team.”  At which I’d say, “Sooo, green smoothies specifically?” (I’m not a fan). And she’d breezily reply, “Nah, just healthy stuff.”And on she would fly.

Moments later, whilst I was still wondering why she was choosing blue tub chairs when our colours are red and gold, she was chopping at the pictures, asking for a glue stick and papercard (somehow I happened to have both), until voila, we had a Vision Board.

I’ve never seen anything so funny in my life.

I wish I had videoed her to show you in fast motion, because seriously, she was like a person possessed. A woman with a vision. The next thing we knew, Hurricane Sam gathered us all up and swept us out to the car, and zooming us off to an obscure cafe in Doonan so she could show me some examples of the ‘meeting pods’ we might want to incorporate.

Whew.

The fun thing for me has been to see it all come together. 

Me with all my plotting and planning and particular-ness would have had a board done by next week or the week after. There would have been deliberations and deletions and I would have had everything planned out precisely as I want it to look. Let’s face it, it would’ve been in alphabetical order, with annotations of prices and stockists. Part business plan, part magazine catalogue, part work of art.

This way, we have a crazy, eclectic, colourful vision that is the essence of our CWC workspace. It’s energetic and full of vibrant life, and it’s done. And being done is important. Rather than being half done and impotent. (No one really likes half a thing, do they?)

Will we end up with a leopard on our red couch? Maybe not. 

But you can bet that this way we are a lot closer to the form, and therefore the function that we are creating with CWC. That we are ready, willing and able to have a go. Re-calibrate if needed, and go again. Every step is a step in A direction. Is it the right one? Yes and No at the same time. Depending on how we look at it.

So I find it both fun and funny to observe the different ways we get places. The things that we think are important along the way. And our way of travelling. 

It’s amazing. And the diversity makes me smile.