2. Travel, teamwork & the gifts from Anthony Bourdain that live on forever.
The Rogue Humans Sunday Newsletter.
Reading: Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain which I expend on more below. Also To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, a favorite of my partner and it’s a fun little time travel read.
Listening to: the rattling hum of the train tracks as I move around southern France.
I’ve just boarded a train for Marseille with my family, where we’ll spend the next few days exploring the city itself and then Les Calanques before heading home through Paris. This is my first visit to Mediterranean waters and as I sit here on this toasty train I can’t help but be super stoked to take a swim, even though I’m not great at it.
Montpellier was spectacular on many levels. The Airbnb was delightful and the streets around us were filled with adorable little boutiques, cafes and restaurants.
Favorite food thus far:
Burrata. All the burrata and all the fresh tomatoes and basil, please!
Pretty much any dessert I can get my hands on. I had an XXL macaron buttercream sandwich that was surrounded with raspberries. And even though I’m full right now I’d still eat one if I could.
French eggs. The yolks are a deep yellow, almost orange hue and they are SO DANG GOOD. It’s very, very hard to return to US eggs.
Espresso. Is espresso a food? Then yes.
Montpellier is a labyrinth of alleyways and criss-crossing streets and I got lost a thousand times but everything was so beautiful I couldn’t possibly mind.
I’m also completely obsessed with the ornate and moody doors across France. They are magical and I want to walk through each and every one of them discover whatever weird portal lives behind them.
I’m immensely enjoying our first ever European family trip as a unit of 3. We travel well together. We laugh a lot. We move through the frustrating and stressful stuff, and I’m real proud of us for that.
Much, much more of France in an upcoming post once I’m back.
This past week I’ve been working with a client in Montpellier and teaching a group of new hires. They learn what it really means to be “a team,” and how to work on something together.
As we start to dig in I remind them that to be a team really starts with reflecting on yourself as a person and building awareness around your own habits, both bad and good, to figure out what you’re bringing to the table with a group of people you’ve never met before.
It requires the ability to listen, empathize, and to have each other’s backs.
Being on a team is not an easy thing. Regardless of industry, a team needs to navigate multiple perspectives, opinions and egos in a world of chaos.
So, teaching classes to help people learn HOW to do it means that it looks different every time. It’s not prescriptive. It’s not about making sure people learn ALL the things, it’s making sure they learn the Right Things.
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