A guest book, a little cabin in Amish country, and a reminder that the places (and people and work) we remember most are the ones that hold our memories.
Oh, if the walls could talk….
This weekend we headed to western Wisconsin for our annual family kayaking trip. Every year we rotate locations, and this time, instead of pitching a tent, we rented a little cabin.
Life
The cabin itself was charming, but it wasn’t until Sunday morning that I found my favorite part.
While everyone else was still asleep, I opened the guest book sitting on the table.
To my surprise, it held nearly 30 years of memories.
The entries dated back to 1997. Over a hundred pages. Thousands of names. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Family reunions. Girls’ weekends. Motorcycle rides. Tomato festivals. Antique shopping trips. Summer vacations. Some families had been coming back for 10 or 15 years.
For a few quiet minutes, I found myself wondering about all the lives that had passed through this tiny cabin. The conversations around the table. The laughter on the porch. The hard seasons people escaped for a weekend. The milestones they chose to celebrate there.
This little cabin on top of a hill in Amish country has had the honor of welcoming so much of humanity.
Before we left, I added our family’s entry. I closed the guest book and thought, Dear little cabin, keep making magic.
As we drove away, I caught myself smiling.
Thanks for being a place where people make memories they’ll carry with them long after they’ve gone.
Sometimes the most ordinary places are actually extraordinary.
Do you have a place like this?
Somewhere that has quietly become a creator and keeper of your memories?
Maybe it’s a lake cabin. A favorite coffee shop. A hiking trail. A local park. Or maybe it’s just your back patio.
Leadership
That little guest book also made me think about work.
Every workplace has one.
Not a binder sitting on a coffee table, but a collection of memories people carry with them.
Ask someone about a job they had ten years ago, and they probably won’t remember the quarterly goals or the org chart.
They’ll remember the manager who walked in every morning with coffee on their shirt and somehow always found time to ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
The teammate who knew exactly when everyone needed a music break.
The meeting where someone spoke up and said, “I think they’re right.” Or the meeting they didn’t.
The project that stretched them with late nights and seemingly impossible deadlines, which of course, they met.
The moment they realized they wanted to stay.
Or the moment they knew it was time to leave.
Years later, those are the stories they still tell.
As leaders, we spend a lot of time thinking about strategy, budgets, and execution. Those things matter.
But every interaction becomes part of someone’s memory of what it was like to work with you.
If your workplace had a guest book, what would this week’s entries say?
What would they say about working with you?
Have Good Ripple Effect,
Lisa