CHAPTER 14

There Awaits

“We’re the real ‘wild hogs,’ ” they said in unison, huge smiles spreading across their faces, one of them flashing the peace sign just in time for me to snap a picture.

We had stopped at a small gas station in Bodega Bay overlooking the harbor, about an hour north of Sausalito on Pacific Coast Highway 1. The cool breezes from the water were a welcome contrast to the summer heat and humidity back home.

Raye and I were on our first real adventure of the empty-nest era. Just two months earlier, we had dropped off our second (and youngest) child at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis for the start of plebe summer and freshman year. Jackson had accepted an offer to play football for the Midshipmen. Raye and I were still pretty raw from the letting go—not to mention the actual moment of good-bye. It had been a similarly bittersweet experience when Mackenzie left for Lipscomb University in Nashville three years earlier. As hard as we had worked to get all of us ready for their launches in life, leaving them on the doorstep of college turned out to be a lot tougher than we had thought.

That is why we had planned this trip. Raye and I needed something to look forward to, and what better way to regroup and recharge than another motorcycle adventure? It had always done the trick before.

So we drove up from the Central Coast with Kirk Specht, a friend we’d met in 2008 on a motorcycle tour with Edelweiss Bike Travel of the Pyrenees, the majestic range of mountains that form the natural border between France and Spain. He loaned us a bike, a BMW RT1200, and we fell in right behind him. We set out for points north, planning to stay as close to the coast as possible and looping back again in a few days just in time to catch our flight home. Where we ended up didn’t really matter. We just wanted to ride and somewhere along the way find our way back to ourselves.

As we pulled into the gas station, we immediately saw them: two older bikers, probably in their seventies, dressed head to toe in black leather, and astride pretty souped-up sport bikes—Ducati Testastretta 11s to be exact. They were filling up for the road ahead. As is often done in the biker community, we wandered over to admire their bikes and ask about their travels.

“Where are you headed?” we asked.

“Anywhere the road takes us,” they responded with no hesitation. “We ride all the time now—every week. No place in particular. Both of us are retired, and we’ve downsized. We don’t need much these days, except of course our bikes.”

And good weather, which is pretty plentiful along the California coast.

We could tell by listening that both had enjoyed some measure of success in their careers. Now they’d made a conscious decision to shelve a lot of the trappings of achievement and focus their resources on things that mattered more to them, like their friendship and the journey.

“How often do you ride?” they asked.

The three of us answered practically in sync: “Not enough,” and we all laughed somewhat wistfully.

Kirk had been in the same season of life as us, busy building an orthodontic practice for the previous 20 years and being a dad to two children, both now grown.

“It’s never enough, no matter how much you ride,” added Kirk.

I agreed. I loved my life, but the season we’d been in was filled with our children’s activities and the building of businesses. Lately I’d been putting in the miles on airplanes instead of motorcycles. It was important to focus on these things while we had the opportunity. But it left me longing for more rides to anywhere the road would take me.

Now the seasons were changing. I’d arrived at a destination—gotten to another “there.” This destination was filled with satisfaction, a lot, in fact:

•   The satisfaction of seeing my children happy, healthy, and continuing on their own journey. We would always cheer them on, but theirs was a new path, one that would take them where they want to go.

•   The satisfaction of seeing my company soar to new heights and our team experience growth and learning like never before. This was the satisfaction of stretching myself as a leader and seeing how change was changing me for the better.

•   The satisfaction of celebrating more than 25 years of marriage to the same wonderful guy, and appreciating how rare that is anymore.

•   The satisfaction of having friends for a lifetime who have loved me, and I them, come what may.

It was all a great destination. A great “there” to arrive at. But somehow, not enough. Even still, after all the journey mindset I’d been trying to infuse into my thinking over the past eight years or so, I was still hungry.

I stood at the gas station and snapped a picture of the two wild hogs. They were pretty cute in their own way, hopping onto their bikes, waving to us as they left. The picture of carefree. I thought I should want what they had, perhaps 10 or 20 years from now: to ride into the sunset and never look back. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to work for?

Perhaps. But honestly, I’ve never wanted more out of life than I do now. Spending my days riding a lonely highway is the furthest thought from my mind. Not that Raye and I won’t find the open road on many occasions between now and then; we’ve already planned our next bike trip, which will be in Norway. But I’ve got plans—big ones. And miles to go before I sleep. That’s the nature of a destination leader. We are wired to set our sights on the horizon and head over the next hillside, no matter how beautiful it is here.

The difference now is that I won’t miss the scenery along the way. Whether I’m on a beautiful coastal highway, pulling myself out of a ditch somewhere along a rocky road, or working through a leadership challenge with my team, I’m not going to miss a single minute of this magnificent journey called life.

Maybe in that way I have found what I was looking for after all, and what the wild hogs have found as well but with many more years to appreciate it: joy in the journey.

And no matter where the road leads, if I keep my eyes focused on where I’m going, I’m certain I will end up there. After all, “there” awaits.