Vintage Memories and the Corporate World

I must share something with you. I have been observing you. Not In a creepy and stalking way, but on your behavior when I share some of my stories. It turns out that many of you like to read the “juicy stuff”. I can’t blame you. Been there, done that. So, here’s one more to share.

I don’t think any of you know that when I was young (from the time I still had a lot of hair on my head), I used to be a professional football player. I mean, the real football – the Brazilian one, not the American one. Sorry US friends!

Yes, I played professional and high-performing football until 19 years old. But then I decided to quit, as I always loved the thing, but not to the point of wanting to make my life around it. That’s how my history with IT started, btw. It has always been there, dormant, and suddenly I figured out, for sure, what I wanted to do with my life. Fast forward 27 years, and I don’t do IT anymore. But that’s a different story. Another blog, maybe.

I’m a nostalgic person for some things, not many, I must confess. But enough to have these memories that bring me back to the past. It can be a vast majority of things to trigger them: An expression, a smell, a video. That’s all I need to start triggering my flashbacks and my mind just flies around those moments. It’s incredible how these small things can make the deepest of our memories come to life again making us relive the moment again – for the good or the bad.

So, a couple of weeks ago I was at home, don’t remember where my wife and kids whereabouts and I selected a Spotify playlist (not created by me, as a matter of fact) called “Quand la musique est bonne” (When music is good, in English) and the second track was Walk of Life, from Dire Straits. The thing is, I know this song very well. Listened to it thousands of times in my life. Bad joke alert!!! Also, while was walking LOL. But the thing is that I don’t recall having ever watched the video clip. By the way, did you know that back then there was no “video clip”? It was just the band playing in a concert or on a stage. Among many things, Michel Jackson created the concept of what we know as videoclip with his epic (sorry, agile joke) Thriller. Well, at least that is true according to a Netflix show called “This is Pop”.

Well, long story short, I watched the Walk of Life’s Dire Straits video. Around the minute 3:28, I had a blast. Technically if you are talking about the past is not a spoiler, is it? Well, there I was, watching the video, showing the story of failures, losses, confusion, and so on. At around the 2:35 minute, I had a blast. There was a bunch of people, sports people, celebrating their successes, their victory. But at that very minute, precise in time, a baseball player was running in the direction of his fellow teammate and jumped onto him to hold him. He was celebrating. He was feeling the joy. He did the Walk of Life!

At that very moment, his brain and body were flooded by adrenalin, oxytocin, and other hormones that I don’t even know the name of – not going to pretend, I’m no doctor. Sorry!

It was inevitable for a former sportsperson as I am, to connect back with my past and have my memories kicking in. God damn it! I can feel today as if I was still there, as it just happened to me, right now as we speak.

Fast forward again, twenty and some years in the future. The year is 2024. Oh, how I so dearly miss these feelings in the corporate world. I miss running towards my colleagues to celebrate a win together, or to hug each other and cheer them up when something doesn’t go according to the expected and morale is down.

I’m an adrenaline junkie, I must confess. Maybe that’s why I do the many things I do. Many at the very same time – you can check my post about it here.

But it’s not (only) about me. It’s also about you. Do you feel the same? I mean, not necessarily with sports. But do you remember those moments that made you have all those feelings?

Then I have a few questions for you: How can we bring this feeling to the corporate world? How can we ensure that we “feel” this kind of sentiment? What to do to foster this type of environment?

Did you close a great sale? Hooray! Let’s celebrate!

Did you deliver a great workshop to your client? There is no better reason to celebrate.

Did you lose a deal? A project? How can we ensure we learn from it and try again, in a different way this time? A setback is a great moment of learning and learning is exciting!

Yeah. I so dearly miss these moments. One can’t come back to the past, but that’s what memories are for. I’m vintage, I have many of those. And more every day.

My most preferred one is …

Not gonna tell you. 😜 I don’t do spoilers. You’ll have to wait for the next chapter LOL

Stay tuned. Stay Agile.

#ForeverYoung