My friend Donnie

My parents live in Fort Myers, FL and, when I visit, I escape to the local coffee shop every morning to work and chat it up with the townsfolk. It didn’t take long to meet Donnie, the owner. He’s a lovely guy and always down for a chat. He’s had a fascinating, but very hard life. He dropped out of school in 9th grade, joined a gang, did some time and, long story short, ended up opening a gorgeous coffee shop that’s easily the best, and prettiest, in town.

Over the holidays last year, I told Donnie he should come visit me in Colorado. He’s going through some intense personal stuff and needed a break. So he took me up on that offer last week. It was a bit of a surprise in that we’d had a few hours worth of coffee shop conversations and a night out at a wine bar. But we had a connection. I took that flatlander all over Boulder and hiked and biked all around the mountains. We spent 4 full days together just talking about real stuff. Hard stuff. You can cover it all when you’ve got hours on a trail together. And we had a dinner party with some friends and the other nights we had a tour of Boulder’s best restaurants. Of course he made our morning coffee.

On our last hike, he said “You know man, this trip has been life-changing.” And I knew he meant it because I knew what we talked about.

That hit me hard. Because I know that spending meaningful time together, in nature, talking about real things, moving your body…that’s a recipe for deep insight. I’ve always known I have something special. People feel comfortable talking to me and I think that’s because I make people feel like they can safely say anything. I think that was one of the reasons why I was a good doctor. And for a few years in med school, I was thinking I would become a child psychiatrist. Maybe next life…

As I’m exploring this next chapter in my life, these are the things I’m trying to figure out. How can I facilitate a safe place for folks to have these life-changing moments? I’m good at it and I love it. When Donnie arrived, I wasn’t even thinking about Lucky Sage. He was just a friend visiting me for a few days. But when he said this trip changed his life, it convinced me that these principles of meaningful time spent moving in nature, eating insanely good food, making new friends via deep conversations…that’s the right recipe for creating connection and meaning. And that’s the only thing that matters in life.