Coming Down from a Rocky Mountain High
Over the years since I’ve been sharing my thoughts in this space on a weekly basis, there is one particular source of inspiration upon which I have drawn far more ideas than any other.
Regular readers can likely guess that I’m referring to the Purposeful Planning Institute, whose members long ago became my “tribe”.
I first attended PPI’s annual RendezVous in Denver in 2014, where it became evident for me that this community was unlike any other group of professionals I’d ever encountered. (I’ve yet to come across anything else even close to it since either.)
Having just completed our first in-person RendezVous since 2019, I’m coming down from my Rocky Mountain high and will share my experience.
Highest Membership Numbers Yet
I should explain my role with this group a bit further before I expound upon the “humble brag” that I’ve already set up here.
I’ve been serving on the Wisdom Expedition for RendezVous for 5 years now, including the past two years as its leader.
Wisdom, along with its sister expedition, Experience, both sit below the Vision Expedition, which is responsible for each annual RendezVous gathering.
The result is that the organisation benefits from a leadership group numbering a couple dozen committed believers, and that breadth has always been a hallmark of PPI’s success.
So when John A. Warnick, PPI’s founder and our fearless leader, shared that PPI’s membership is now over 450 people, there were many people in the room who beamed with pride, as this is the highest number since PPI’s initial RendezVous in 2011.
Pent Up Demand for Connection
Reconvening with one’s tribe is always great because although we’ve remained connected virtually in the interim, this is a group of “huggers” and many were long overdue.
And, at the same time, there were so many new faces this year too, and that bodes well for the future.
Our theme was well selected, “The Fundamentals of Human Connection” and I’m quite sure we won’t stray too far from that in the future either, as it is what sets the PPI community apart.
What we all have in common is a desire to better serve the families we work for, and doing so requires that we go deeper, and connect not just with our heads but also with our hearts and souls.
A Community and Its Members
Between sessions over the three days, there are lots of long breaks built in, during which relationships can be built and or rekindled.
By the final day, I kept returning to the same comments in my discussions:
The whole of our community is greater than the sum of its parts, for sure, AND, so many of those parts are really fantastic to begin with.
As I often remark, the way we think about our professional community also happens to have many parallels to the work we all do with families.
Not all families realize how important it is for them to work on developing all of the human capital they have at their disposal in their family.
As we have the privilege to work with such families, part of what we often need to do is to nudge them in this direction, and encourage them to consider every family member and their individual development, and not simply be satisfied that the family remains wealthy or that their business continues to succeed.
A Few Highlights for Good Measure
Following RendezVous each year I typically blog about some of the highlights, but I didn’t leave myself much room this time.
From our opening keynote from Akasha to the closing salvo from David York, there were many other great moments in between.
The Dream Building session featuring Amanda, Cathy and Marlis was off the charts, the FRED Talks that I was honoured to introduce were all home runs, and the two Purposeful Connections speeches were wonderfully touching.
I was looking forward to finally meeting my friend Cindy Radu in person, but thanks to a late Covid diagnosis, she was forced to submit hers on video, and she blew everyone away nonetheless.
I always go to RendezVous to refill my proverbial “pitcher”, from which I pour for the other 51 weeks of the year.
As usual, the many firehoses that were present made it overflow and I left all wet, and very fulfilled.
See you again next year.
