Exploring England: Volume 4
As I bid the CN&CO team farewell, these are some of the lessons I took with me…and they stay with me to this day. Originally published on the CN&CO blog in March 2020.
A farewell is not a goodbye
I feel like I have been at CN&CO for years but looking back it has been a short time filled with thousands of experiences. This is what makes me feel like it has been longer than it actually has been. I also think the fact that I have known a number of the team members for years adds to this. (People like Gianluca who, even after seven years, still can’t spell my name correctly).
I am beginning a new adventure in the UK this month and as such I say farewell to CN&CO but not goodbye. This is something that I have wanted to do for a number of years and I even tested the waters at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019. That experience was amazing and something I was enabled to do by Carel and CN&CO. It showed me that I could do this and that if I really wanted to do it I should.
Read all about my time in the UK on our blog. Besides working with our partners like Club Med and MKTE and meeting new potential partners, I spent my first month exploring Christmas markets and the English countryside and enjoying delicious winter food. In my second month I continued my work with our great partners, I explored some of Europe, I took some classes at the Apple store, and I found a barber. In my third month I continued to connect with new and current partners, I enjoyed theatre on the West End including Wicked, I watched the amazing Arsenal beat Southampton at the Emirates, and I prepared to come home.
A little while ago the team wrote about our “why”. This is our reason for being part of the CN&CO team and I wrote this, which is still true: “It has been quite the journey: it has been a thrilling, scary, amazing, daunting ride.”
I added that “My why is that I want to change lives for the better, I want to communicate the right things to the right people in the right ways, and I want to be happy. I want to do this in spheres that I enjoy and resonate with (both new and old) in meaningful ways that will change people’s lives.”
What I have learnt at CN&CO
Some of the lessons I take from CN&CO are below. Some of these are things I’ve known and others are things I did not know. Let me know on social media what you have learnt either from CN&CO or from your job(s).
Things can change and they do. Often
We can determine our own path
Club Med holidays really are all-inclusive
While there are consequences to what we do, these consequences – usually – are not the end of the world
Not all people think the way you do and have the same vision
Insurance is way more complicated than I thought
Insurance isn’t as complicated as I thought
More of us need to be honest about our feelings towards each other – it makes for much easier conversations and better environments
We should always push ourselves to think more laterally
Just because that’s how we’ve always done it doesn’t mean that’s how we should still do it or how we should do it in the future
Think it and then do it. Don’t waste time
Just give it a try – you never know where it could lead
Don’t mess it up (we all know to whom this key phrase belongs and I won’t use the actual word he uses in place of “mess”)
Be more courageous. Always
As I wrote in my third Exploring England blog: I love exploring England and this is not the end of this journey for me… England has not seen the last of me and neither has the Emirates Stadium.
“The decision to walk creates the path ahead.” – Paulo Coelho
