A Letter from Chris Suarez
WEEKEND WALKS WITH WINSTON
Almost eight months ago I welcomed a new dog into the family. Around the time we brought him home, I was finishing up perhaps my fourth or fifth book about Winston Churchill, and was able to convince my daughters to name our new puppy after the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. I have developed a routine, almost a habit, of taking a long hike with my dog Winston early Saturday morning as the sun comes up and again late Sunday afternoon as the sun goes down.
I hesitate to call it a routine, as it is anything but “routine”. The back half of our 40 acre farm is forested, along a fairly active mountain creek that has running water year round. There is a main trail about 2 miles long that loops through the forest and back down to the bottom of our property by our barn. It’s a nice loop for a normal day, and one I run often, or take the kids on after work. But on Saturday and Sunday I go off trail. And by going off trail it allows me to break the routine. It allows me to see different things every time. No matter how many times I walk through that forest, it’s new every time. Our property borders hundreds of acres of national conservation land, so in all honestly I’m not quite sure where our property ends and where the conservation land begins. And it doesn’t really matter.
I have begun to call these hikes my Weekend Walks with Winston. They aren’t for physical exercise, but rather for mental exercise. Sometimes they last a half hour, sometimes an hour, once in a while two. Some days I look at the forest through my eyes, and some days I look at the forest through the eyes of Winston, my dog. It has allowed me so often to get new perspective on old challenges. I often think about problems that have shown up in my business or in my life over the course of the week. As I think, I take a slightly different path through the forest every time.
A few weeks back I wrote about some research pointing to the fact that when driving a consistent route in your car it can seem to speed up time. Conversely when taking new routes in your car, it seems to take longer to get to your destination. Familiarity seemingly increases the speed of time.
There is evidence that time seems to slow down when we confront the unfamiliar, and speed up when we're engaged in routine. Research shows this is why for most people, time appears to go by faster as we get older, and we confront fewer new experiences. As we get older and set in our ways, or less adventurous, our lives can become too “ordinary” and structured, slipping by quickly without allowing us the opportunity to think about things differently.
Look at your typical schedule. Too often our days and weeks fly by. Now, there is some genius in routine. Success in our activities lies in strategic habit. However, problems are solved through approaching them from different angles and perspectives. Complexity is simplified by slowing down. These walks have allowed me to take new routes, slow down time as it were, and see things from a new perspective - at times not even my own. Many of my weekly letters have come from these walks as I get lost in the woods, or watch Winston figuring out the world in front of him. It’s given me some time to reflect on my experiences from the week, lessons learned from those experiences, and search for solutions to challenges that remain unsolved. Sometimes it’s a complex system that I need to figure out how to simplify. Other times it’s something in the world that I’m struggling to understand or come to terms with. And of course often, it’s a business or leadership challenge that I need to reframe or find clarity on.
What I’ve learned is that going off trail - changing your scenery - actually allows you for a moment to see life unfold in slow-motion. And just like watching a movie or a sports replay in slow-motion, details show up that were otherwise unnoticed or “unseeable”. Perhaps equally valuable has been seeing the world through the eyes of Winston, a puppy. He brings no judgement or preconceived opinion to our walks. He runs through the forest every weekend as if it were the first time through. He approaches at times with caution, at times with abandon, and always with energy.
He certainly looks forward to his walks. But don’t tell him. My weekend walks with Winston are much more for me than for him.
Chris