Tag Archives: friendship

Experiences, not things

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I got to go to the Canada vs Switzerland World Cup game today. I went with a high school friend I met in Grade 10, back in 1982.

We joined the parade to the stadium and really embraced the day. Canada lost 2-1, and while it would have been great to see Canada win, or tie, they did make the game extremely exciting in the final minutes.

I’m sure that I’ve shared this before, but as I get older I really want to focus on experiences, not stuff. I don’t need any new toys, I don’t need the newest gadgets. I want to spend time with family and friends doing things… having experiences.

Experiences, not things.

Today was truly a wonderful experience with a longtime friend.

 

The two Daves

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Yesterday I had the first of a few retirement celebrations. What was wonderful about it is that I celebrated with my good friend, mentor, and brother-from-another-mother, Dave Sands. I started my career a few years after Dave and in my first year I was provided the opportunity to co-teach a student leadership class with him. That was the start of an amazing friendship, and although we only worked in the same building for 2 years, we have truly been colleagues who have had opportunities to collaborate and work with each other throughout our careers. As well, we have had countless breakfasts, lunches, and walks up the Coquitlam Crunch.

The retirement event was wonderful. There were a few fun stories…

A meme or two…

And an opportunity to celebrate our careers.

Screenshot

However, what really made this wonderful were the people who joined us. Yes, we’ve both had pretty successful, and as was mentioned, influential careers in the district. And there were jokes about the different superpowers we possess. But if we actually have any superpowers it’s in connecting with some really great people. What made the event special were the people who joined us.

As I reach the end of my career I keep looking back at the wonderful people I’ve worked with, and the way that I’ve been supported by them. With every accomplishment I can think of there have been amazing people that have been part of the team or who have initiated an opportunity for me in some way. When I reflect on the collaborative journey I’ve been on, again and again, I feel blessed.

Celebrating my retirement with the other Dave allowed us both to appreciate the people around us, but also each other. We both had out-of-the-box kind of journeys and our careers for the past decade-plus have run in parallel. Having each other as friends made the journey so much easier, more enjoyable, and less alone. It was totally fitting to have our retirement celebration together.

Where it all started

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Facebook reshared a ‘Blast from the past’ post with me, it was a Daily-Ink post titled, ‘I teach leadership not followship’. This title is a quote from friend, and first teaching mentor, Dave Sands. What I enjoyed most about seeing this post again was the Facebook comments on it. Here are 2 from colleagues and one from myself:

Dave MacLean:

l’ve drawn from so many experiences from our days as Lakers. Truly the environment that pushed all of us in such a healthy way. So many strong leaders with such mutual respect for each other. I would be lying if I said there weren’t days where I pang for those days of pedagogical debate and learning. Tha for the trip down memory lane. I was recently at Como for an articulation meeting and our legacies are still present in the culture 15 years later.

 

David Truss:

Dave MacLean I can’t think of a richer learning environment than what we had. I believe that more than 1/3 of the teachers we worked with in the first 5 years at Como Lake became administrators… yet it was always about collaboration not competition, and servant leadership, by staff as well as students.

 

Elaan Bauder Gudlaugson:

Dave MacLean, David Truss

Como Lake was my first experience in education that taught me about how I wanted “school” to be. The staff made all the difference.

 

I’m fortunate to have reunited with Elaan, and we have worked together again at Inquiry Hub for the last 5 years. And she’s right… the staff really does make the difference!

It’s hard not to get a bit nostalgic as I head into retirement. And this is a good thing. To this day my closest friends are still people I connected with in those early years of teaching. We knew we had something special going on. We still see former students in the community who tell us things like, “We could tell you liked each other and that you liked us.” And, “Those were the best years of school for me.”

I entered education with an inspiring group of people who were also amazing educators and leaders. We grew up together as educators and we watched our families and children grow up too. I wish every educator could find a community like this in their early years, because I know I had something special.

There is nothing wrong with being nostalgic when I can frame it as being lucky and blessed to have had the opportunities to learn and grow within the community that I got to. It paved the way to a career I can look back on with love, warmth and fondness.

____

Update: Two more posts where I share this perspective.

Crunching again

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The jury is still out on whether my buddy and I are going to ‘Everest the Crunch’ in August, (climb the Coquitlam Crunch trail 37 times in 48 hours, to go up the equivalent height of Mount Everest)… but at least I’ve been back on the trail for the last 4 weekends. Before that I had to take 6 weeks off due to sciatic pain.

A commitment to my physio visits and exercises, regular massage, and of course some extra rest, has all lead to my recovery. Today we did the most we’ve done in a while with 2 trips up, 2 extra loops of the 457 stairs section, and one trip down, (we start by dropping a car off at the top), and seven hours later I feel no pain.

My buddy Dave has taken my injury in stride and isn’t rushing us back to where we were before I had to slow down, and so I don’t feel any pressure to push more than I should. That said, we are just 4 months away from the challenge and if we don’t ramp up soon, our bodies won’t be ready for 37 treks up the hill. I feel ready to push a bit harder, but not ready yet to say this will be a ‘go’ in four months.

Still, the 6 week break was way longer than our previous gap of maybe 2 weeks since we started doing the Crunch in January 2021, and it feels wonderful to be back… and more importantly, pain free. We are crunching again! Whether this leads to the challenge in August or not, this cherished time with my buddy is back on track.

Downtown Escape

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Last night 6 of us went to see Moulin Rouge, and we made a weekend of it downtown. The show was wonderful, and the lead singer was absolutely sensational. There were no weak performances, and yet the lead outshined everyone. It’s just amazing to see someone passionately performing at the top of their game… and she was the player of the night.

On top of that we all stayed downtown for the weekend. A staycation in Vancouver, a little rest & relaxation in an otherwise busy month. Just had a hot tub with the boys, and we’ll all be heading to dinner in a couple hours.

A fun weekend escape… and there’s still more to come.

It’s 6am, let’s go!

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We’ve fully reached the stage of finding reasons to go rather than finding excuses not to. I’m not available this weekend to do our weekly walk up the Coquitlam Crunch, so Dave and I met in darkness at 6am to start our trek up the hill.

I’d say we reached this stage a full year ago. It was 2025 that we went from our commitment to doing the climb at least 40 times a year, matching the weeks of a school year, to ensuring we never missed a week. This wasn’t a voiced decision, it’s one we just found ourselves doing.

Now it’s something we just do… And yet it’s a lot more than that!

It’s a chance to to talk, to rant, to seek advice, to share, to listen, to connect.

It’s a commitment to a friend.

We now regularly meet at 6am for workouts anyway, and we often do multiple crunches at a time training for Everesting the Crunch, so to meet on a cold Thursday morning and just go up and down the Crunch once, actually feels like a rest day.

Accept and place

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I heard this phrase and it really struck a chord with me:

“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.”

There are 2 really big ideas here.

First, we are often quick to want people to change, and the disparity between who people are and who we want people to become is often too large of a gap. Step one is accepting people for who they are.

The next step is a bit more challenging. We often spend way too much time on people that are not worth our time. We don’t ‘put people where they belong’. We take amazing people for granted and we focus too much attention on people who aren’t worth our time.

The task sounds simple: accept people for who they are, then place them in your life accordingly.

There are people who would do anything in the world for you. And people who you in turn would do anything for. When that’s the same person, well then you need to prioritize your connection to that person. They deserve a special place in your heart and in your life. They deserve your attention and time. Not the person that cut you off in traffic, not the annoying co-worker, not the friend in need that is never there when you are in need.

“Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.”

Wise words to live by.

Most valued

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I spent the afternoon with my mom, her sister, my wife and my kids. My aunt had us in stitches. It was wonderful having a good belly laugh. My favourite line from my auntie. “I like living by myself. I’m fine to talk to myself, I don’t need anybody else. It’s only a problem if I hear voices talking back, other than that, I’m good.”

Before this, I spent most of the day with an old friend. I can’t travel back home to my mom and not find time to see my buddy.

It’s just wonderful to realize that what I value most are my family and friends. Give me this, and my health, and I really don’t need much else from this world.

I feel blessed.

The hard ask

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Too many people try to go solo when they have a community of support around them. There are more people around you willing to help you than you think. You just need to ask… and that’s the problem. The help isn’t always offered.

The people who can be most helpful would be glad to help if they just knew you needed help. The trick is to make contact and be clear about what you are hoping for.

There’s a difference between: “Do you have time to…?” And, “I really need you to help me right now.”

There’s a difference between: “Hey, just calling to say hi.” And, “I really needed a friend I could talk to right now.”

Too many times in my career, and in my personal life, I only realized after the fact that I could have gotten so much more support to get over a rough patch than I actually got, more than I asked for… only because I didn’t know how to ask, or that I could ask.

Sometimes I’ve thought I’d asked, but it was a soft ask, a sort of ‘help would be nice’ kind of ask rather than an, ‘I really need help’ kind of ask.

I get it, it would be great to have people realize that the soft ask wasn’t just an ask but a need. The thing is, everyone is knee deep in their own stuff and the soft ask can easily be missed. So don’t assume your soft ask is enough.

If you need help be clear, be blunt, and ask. It’s hard to do the hard ask… just do it anyway!

Make the average better

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There is a saying that I love, which goes like this:

‘You are the average of the people you spend the most time with.’

I’ve seen it over and over again at school. Take a kid who’s floundering, put them in a friend group that is doing well, and suddenly that kid is also doing well. Inversely, put a smart, good kid in a friend group with kids that don’t care about school, and watch that kid’s marks (and attitude) fall.

Entire classes can be influenced this way and in a small community minded school, we’ve seen how a culture of getting work done and showing pride in caring for our school and our community has been contagious.

Going back to the quote, it’s mathematically impossible that everyone could be the average of the 5 people around them… but there is no doubt that those around you have tremendous influence regarding how you act, and what you value. And the power in the quote is as much about what you do to that average as it is what others do to that average.

Be someone who increases the average. Be someone who finds ways to make the people you surround yourself with better. This simple act will increase the average for everyone and generate a positive feedback loop. After a while, you and your friends will never be just average again.