Over the last few months, my seven year old daughter Piper has started to join me on my morning walks. I walk briskly, she jogs to keep up and often we hold hands, sharing a set of headphones to listen to our favourite music (ashamedly, Taylor Swift and Pink are faves). It’s the perfect opportunity for the two of us to find some time to ourselves, and to connect with each other in what is an otherwise very busy life.
If you read my last post http://queenhood.com.au/our-children-are-wise/ , you’ll remember I was contemplating having (or doing) ‘it all’. My husband and I both work full time, often until late and because of the industry I work in, I’m often required to be out several nights per week. My daughter does every extra curricular activity her school offers, mostly because she’s incredibly energetic and loves to try everything and also because it’s a great way of keeping her at school late into the afternoon – a huge plus from a childcare perspective.
As we worked our way up the hill on one of our morning walks, me already thinking about the day ahead and everything I had to do, I realised that Piper wasn’t next to me. I turned around and there she was kneeling by a flower patch at the front of an apartment building. My initial reaction was to hurry her up. After all, I still needed time to pick up my coffee, make it back home, give her and her sister breakfast, get us all dressed and out the door.
But as I hurried her along, something she said totally stopped me in my tracks.
As she sat there, bent over the flower bed, with her nose smelling a beautiful row of someone’s prized tulips she said to me simply…”Mummy, why don’t you stop to smell the flowers? It only takes a minute!” And there, as only a child can, she taught me perhaps the one skill I was lacking as a mother, as a wife and absolutely as a business owner.
They say perspective and the ability to look at the big picture is one of the most important and inherent qualities of a good leader. So isn’t it time we asked ourselves “What are we striving for anyway, and why aren’t we stopping to smell the flowers?”
“After all, it only takes a minute!”
