Thankful Thursday: Istanbul Part 2
Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque
It’s Thankful Thursday and here’s the 2nd installment on my work travel to Istanbul.
Three things that I knew for sure before traveling were reinforced for me while on the road. One had to do with our client and the others with my experience exploring the city on my own.
Thing 1
Ask any group facilitator and they will tell you that supporting a client through a global staff retreat is mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting. With a range of expectations, multiple languages, immediate and long-term goals in play, and everyone traveling “some” distance to the location, emotions were high and bodies were tired before we even got to day 1.
While the learnings were significant for our client and our team, the one thread that held it all together was a laser beam focus on the organization’s mission. The guardrails of a strong mission, combined with the passion and commitment of a team, enhance an organization’s ability to envision the possibilities that a strategic plan generates. It allows team members to plan forward with a strong sense of their destination.
For this client, it was their mission, and excellence in delivering against that mission, that made the planning forward achievable. From our perspective as facilitators, the energy in the room throughout the week was more than satisfying.
Thank you to the primary facilitators in the room, Tanya Cruz Teller and Stephen Read of Spaciousness Works, and Mercedes Martin, President/CEO of Mercedes Martin & Company, who led the team through this engagement!
Thing 2
No matter where you are in the world, you will see and experience humans thriving and surviving. Istanbul was no different. With 20 million residents, the city is as alive as you can imagine and it wasn’t even “high” season! Every street held humans moving, but not always at a fast pace. It was a city full of people strolling and never seemingly in a rush, even on a Monday morning.
As I passed restaurants and stores, the callout of “Lady” became familiar. That name was repeated over and over again until I had completely passed the storefront making my way… somewhere. From my taxi driver who used his app to ask me why I didn’t speak Turkish, to the jazz club where a vocalist who was the 2025 version of Janis Joplin belted her songs in English, to a woman from Dallas who sat at the table next to me on a night cruise on the Bosphorus, people were simply doing their thing and I was along for the ride.
Basilica Cistern
Thing 3
Traveling is a gift. Whether you transit to an adjacent state, a nearby country or one across an ocean, I encourage you to get out of your comfort zone and invite new experiences into your life. It is often said that we have more in common than we have differences and, in the end, I believe that to be true. Somewhere during my walking tour of the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (that was once a Roman Catholic Cathedral), the Hippodrome and the Basilica Cistern (a subterranean structure built by enslaved people in the 6th century that provided a water filtration system), the conversation shifted into a deep discussion about religion. Even with the clear and distinct differences in how and what we believe, we agreed that in the end, it’s all about love.
What I experience when I travel, is that at the core of all we are, is the humanity that we see in one another. This human race. The protection of our families. The desire for economic stability. The care of our homes and communities. The values we hold close. The faith that we carry in knowing that whatever we experience that is bad, will at some point become better. It has to.
On this Thankful Thursday, I am grateful for my 3 things. What’s on your gratitude list today?