Sue Tompkins

Reflecting on this year, one of the memories that stands out was the trip we took with our young family to Conkers, an outdoor experience at the heart of the National Forest. My kids are great walkers and we all love to be outdoors, so we happily enjoyed a gentle stroll in fresh territory – not a particularly stretching challenge but a nice place to be and a relaxing day out.

Whilst walking along, we noticed some signs near the path, encouraging us to follow the arrows towards The Barefoot Trail. This was something new and unexpected for us and although it didn’t happen instantly, I noticed the family mood start to shift. Our rather comfortable potter was challenged by a decision – Do we go on the Barefoot Trail…or not?

Our parental response was a jumble of: What’s that all about? How do I clean my feet afterwards? I haven’t got any clean clothes for the kids. Maybe they could do it and I’ll hold the bags? Resist, resist, resist! As we got closer, we’d unconsciously decided we were NOT doing this. And our kids had tuned into it and were unconsciously agreeing too.

Perhaps it was the screams of laughter coming through the trees that  had me start to engage with the possibility of our doing it, and at that point I clearly remember making a conscious decision – I have to choose to do this or my kids and I will miss out on an amazing experience.

However, I now had some family energy to manage and our spirit energy needed raising FAST. So I threw myself into a wonderful description of how doing this would feel just like walking across the beach on holiday, something that’s actually very close to our experience already. Imagine stepping nimbly around the big stones, gingerly crossing the shingle as fast as possible, shuffling through the powdery sand, sprinting across the hard wet sand, then splashing into the sea and churning the sand with your toes!  By the end of this we were all pretty excited – we were fully enrolled, committed and engaged.

The next shrieks of laughter were ours! Our bare feet crossed bark, coal, cobbles, slippery china clay and troughs of water, and received a welcome place to clean up at the end. It was an experience absolutely not to be missed.

Leadership Nudge: Take some time this week to practice reading the mood of the people around you, notice how engaged they are and find a way to raise their energy and have them ready to take a risk and be fully enrolled, committed and engaged.

By Sue Tompkins