Walking the Camino: Leadership and Life LessonsIn this bonus episode, Winnie reflects on her experiences this summer walking the Camino with her family and the leadership and life lessons she learned along the way.Be prepared but don’t over prepare. Allow for serendipitous opportunities to emerge for a more present experience.  Sushil planned all of the logistics to get us to ourstarting place. After that, we just started walking, following the signs as wewent. We didn’t know where we were going to stay or where we were going to eat.We trusted the path thousands of people before us had traveled. We always founda place to eat and sleep. Sometimes, meticulous detailed planning down to thehour can often get in the way of spontaneous discovery. Align on the final destination. Even if it’s not clearhow you’ll get there or how long it will take.  Our goal: get to Santiago. We budgeted 10 days. After thefirst two days we realized this isn’t walking, it is hiking. Mountains. We’renot a particularly outdoorsy or athletic family. All of our walking in NYCdidn’t fully prepare us for this. At first we’re like 10 days? We need moretime! But as our bodies and minds adjusted to the hiking we got it done in 9days! Having clarity on the final goal pushed us forward.The people you surround yourself with will drag you downor bring you up. Choose wisely.  We thought we’d meet lots of people along the way. Butfor the first half we were mostly on our own. So, we really depended on eachother to keep our spirits up. Later on my youngest daughter connected with awoman walking with her adult son. They told each other stories; they raced eachother along the way – sometimes backwards! This woman was so kind and caring.She gave my daughter the energy and confidence she needed that day to keepwalking.Embrace negative feelings with compassion: encouragehonesty, listen, empathize, adjust when you can, remember the goal, keepgoing.   Our bodies were sore at the start. Like I can’t walk, I'mso sore. There were shin splints. Some of us got a cold. One night we stayed ata hostel with no hot water, it smelled like a wet dog (because there was one)and there were lots of flies. Not the best. One day we climbed an elevation of5,000 feet. Each of us hit a wall at different times. The rest of us listenedand gave extra support to the person who needed it the most.Understand each person’s motivation. The drive we have tomove forward can be different for everyone. Each family member was motivated to walk “yet anothermile” in different ways. Popsicles. How fast can you walk a mile? One piece ofcandy per mile. Listening to music. Or an audio book. Searching for kitty cats!A beer at lunch.…Unexpected people can bring wisdom and joy in unforeseenways.  As we began our trek on day two, we encountered anartisan selling hand-made rosaries and other trinkets. The guy, a Colombiantransplant, looked just like Mr. Bloomsbury from the Curious Georgemovie–scrawny, long silvery hair held in a ponytail with a gigantic mustache tomatch. As we said our goodbyes, his message to Sushil was: “Descanso!” Whichmeans: take it easy. Don’t rush the Camino.Six hours later after a spectacular trek up to 4900 feet,we entered a tiny 1500 year old village nestled in the Galician mount​​ains.Loitering about when we arrived was a man who looked exactly like our Mr.Bloomsbury. Apparently, he had forgotten to give Sushil his rosary! So he goton his motorcycle, rode into the mountains and miraculously found us!   Roles will always emerge, whether purposely or bydefault. Be proactive in the role you want to play and the contributions youwant to make. At the end of the Camino, we decided to give out“participation awards.” We collectively decided what contribution we thoughteach person made (in secret). Rummaging through a cheesy gift shop we foundgifts that symbolized their “award”. Hilarity ensued as we tried to explain howtheir award somehow was represented in this weird little present. Sushilreceived “The Camino Sherpa Award” for being the “spiritual guide” of our walk.Our daughters received the following awards: The Mood-Lifter Award, The PuristAward, The Most Resilient Award. I got the “General Award” which I thought waspretty lame until they clarified it wasn’t “in-general” but for being thecommander/enforcer of sorts. Mindset changes everything. Sam Sanchez from AppleFitness says: “You are meant to do hard things.” Besides, the most difficultfeats bring the most satisfying rewards.  Mindset was everything when walking the Camino. And if mymindset wasn’t right, usually this impacted everyone else. Honestly, this quotepopped into my head all the time. Everyday we encountered some sort ofchallenge. But if we believe we are meant to do hard things, that means we aremeant to be here, to figure it out, to push through. I thought about theexperience we were giving our kids. To push through, to be resilient, to dothis thing even if it was really hard at times. The finish was sweet. Lookingback now is even sweeter. You forget the hard things.

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