A Letter from Chris Suarez
KEEP ON FILLING. YOU WON’T GET FULL.
I have quickly learned that having a pond in Autumn is not ideal for anyone with any hint of an obsessive compulsive personality. I find myself waking up before the sun and going out to the ponds and skimming them free of leaves, grass, pond weeds. I have nets, and rakes and aerators. Now I do that mostly for the visual nature of the ponds. In fact, my wife feels inclined to remind me that they are “ponds” and not a “swimming pool”. And of course, no sooner than I finish, there are leaves scattered across the surface of ponds again. Welcome to October.
However, all that work does serve a utilitarian purpose as well. It keeps a lot of those leaves from covering and clogging the spillways.
The ponds on the farm are well connected, each one feeding the pond just below it in a system of drains, waterfalls, and spillways. It allows us to use the natural Canyon Creek water source to fill a few acres of ponds stocked with trout, bass, koi… and perhaps more importantly provide hours of swimming, paddle boarding, and water activities for the girls.
Each pond has underground drain pipes that keep those ponds at the right level, preventing it from becoming too full, overflowing, and flooding the fields. There is water running into these ponds all year round, every single month, all day and they were designed perfectly to work together to create a very special place.
I was out on the big pond early this morning after getting a really kind text from one of my business partners. They are set to have their best year ever in a decades long career and in passing shared their “sense of fulfillment”. I began to think about this word, “fulfilled”.
We are often searching for jobs, careers, relationships that fulfill us. Or maybe we feel we found that. We tell ourselves that we go to bed each day fulfilled. But what does that mean?
If we really understood what we were saying, we may not all be looking to attain fulfillment. I am certain we are all searching for more than that.
The verb FULFILL means to “bring to completion or reality; achieve something desired, promised, or predicted.” Put simply, we did what we said we would do.
The noun FULFILLMENT means “the meeting of a requirement or condition.” Put simple, we did what we were told to do.
If we are to be fulfilled it means we have completed something that we wanted to do, something we promised to do, or even predicted that we would do. Although that is definitely an achievement, it is hardly something we will find real meaning in.
As we look at the real meaning of that word, it will feel incredibly selfish and actually anticlimactic.
That is why many top performers say that when they finally win that championship, earn that gold medal, win that Grammy or Emmy, or hit the best seller list it didn’t mean as much as they thought it would. It didn’t bring a sense of meaning or peace to their lives. The same is true of business. We could be aiming for a goal for years and when we finally hit it, somehow it doesn’t live up to our expectations. How could that be? We might be filled, yet no one else is.
In the 13th century the word fulfillment originally was intended to indicate a sense of completion, in a way an ending. I don’t believe the ending of anything ever brings a real sense of meaning, or peace, or significance to our lives – the ending of a relationship, a project, a vacation, a life.
Somewhere along the way, we began looking for meaning in a word that was intended to signify an ending or completion.
One of my mentors once said that the highest calling on the planet is being a coach – because coaching is helping others. Building a business with people is a high calling. You wake up every day helping others. You wake up every day knowing that you can’t just fill yourself up. You must overflow and help fill up those around you.
A goal can oftentimes lead to fulfillment – in its purest definition. It’s simply something to check off your list as achieved as promised or predicted.
We will hit almost every goal that we set this year as an organization, as we promised ourselves to do. I don’t feel any real meaning by that achievement. However my partners achieving their goals, breaking new ceilings, attracting incredible talent to their worlds, and living experientially brings real meaning to the purpose and mission of our company and our business. Businesses and business owners don’t find purpose and meaning in hitting goals. That’s just a full pond with no waterfall. It might be pretty to look at, but it serves no real purpose.
As I watched one pond flow into the second pond, and the second pond flow into the third early this morning, I realized that we need to do more than just fill ourselves up. If the pond had just enough water to be full, but not overflow, then the lower pond would just dry up over time.
A fulfilled life, is actually quite empty. As it is selfish and has an ending. By definition, as we help others achieve and reach new goals and make progress down the path to their preferred future, that will bring real meaning.
If we continue to fill ourselves up, just like that pond, we will overflow and be able to help others be filled as well. This works with the skills we develop and teach to others, knowledge we take in and give freely, books we read and share, money we earn and give away, opportunities we come across and connect others to… It’s endless. It’s that non-stop flow of water.
Do not be content with being fulfilled. It is not what you have been made to believe. Keep on filling. You won’t get full. You will simply overflow.
Chris