I’ve been reflecting a lot on our first-ever Painted Porch event — and nearly two weeks later, I’m still basking in the glow of all the fun we had! I hope we look back on this as an amazing first step in a larger movement for our industry — of authenticity, community, friendship, and empowerment for us all. While I hesitated to write something about it, the truth is that the time I had was inspiring enough to share…so here are some of the feelings it elicited for me:
Joy. Firstly, what a treat it is to be back around people again, and to feel the energy of being in a group. While it’s hard to characterize anything these days as “normal”, the event certainly approached something like the way life used to be…and it felt good. I felt a lot of personal joy, for sure — and I also felt it from our team (it was the first time we’d all been together in person – more on that in a sec!). Best of all was what I got from our broader community – partners, clients, and friends. After a difficult 16 months for us all…how cool was it to feel the joy of being together, even if just for a few hours…
Worthy. It was my first time engaging with our community in person. And as I’m fairly new to personal finance as a career, I really enjoyed speaking and connecting with the people that we love to work with and help; of getting to understand who they are, where they come from and where they want to go. We shared stories and laughs. I felt immediately at ease with our community — not surprising at all, but certainly affirmation that we are doing something as a company that people appreciate and value (and the feeling is mutual!).
Grateful. I met several people at the event that I had only known previously by email or Zoom. The connection itself felt really great, the people were amazing, and I relished the genuine feeling that “these are my kind of people”. I also felt extremely grateful for this amazing team of co-workers that I get to spend my days with, even if many of them are remote to me. While not unexpected, it was amazing to see our team get along so well with each other…we had lots of fun — and got a lot done during our 3 days together. But best of all for me was watching my teammates connecting with each other and the rest of our community at the event, everyone feeling comfortable and joyful and really having a good time. It made me quite grateful for the team we’ve built, our growing community, and the quality people we’ve been fortunate enough to work with.
Adventurous. The success of the event made us all feel like – “We need to do more of this!” So while we will certainly need to navigate some evolving restrictions resulting from the Delta variant, I am looking forward to hosting more events in other cities where we have a vibrant and growing community…and where we will get to laugh and have fun and appreciate each other.
So please stay tuned and let us know if you’d like us to host something in your town!
Painted Porch
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