There are some moments as a leader when I have to stop and have a moment of quiet awe at my team.
This past weekend was one of those moments for me.
Meet Edina: Marathon Finisher & Hype Queen
Edina is our Senior Account Manager here at Kairos Digital, but she is also an avid runner and general hype queen for everyone in her life. She is one of the reasons that the team culture at Kairos Digital is as fun as it is. If there is a party, Edina is making sure that it is a blast!
A few weeks ago, Edina flew out to Austin to run in the Austin Marathon and finished!
When I was training for the Gate River Run a few years ago, Edina put together a whole run plan for me and made sure I was keeping up with it! And this year, as my wife, Caroline, is training for the same run, Edina has been her near-constant support as she navigates the process of getting ready.
Meet Angela: Marathon Plans Interrupted
Angela is one of our amazing Account Coordinators, and because Edina’s enthusiasm is contagious, trained for and ran her own Half Marathon in December! But that wasn’t enough for her. After all, when would she be this close to being trained up to run a full marathon again?
So she decided to keep her training going and train for the Donna Marathon.
But the week before the marathon, Angela had a death in the family that meant she had to choose between traveling for the funeral and running the Donna Marathon she had trained for.
She chose her family. She chose to be present with those grieving and to miss the race she had been preparing for over previous months.
If You Can’t Join It, Build It
This is the part that makes me stop in awe.
Edina decided to throw Angela her own, personal, one-person Marathon!
It’s one thing to be there and offer empathy to a coworker or friend. It’s something else entirely to decide to just create your own marathon.
Edina and Angela organized what they called the Wildflower Marathon — a full, legitimate marathon route run right here in Jacksonville. They recruited friends and teammates to run relay-style alongside Angela the entire way, so she was never alone on the course. Friends ran, biked, rollerbladed, and set up water and cheer stations along the route, with Edina and Angela’s husband, Nick, driving ahead at each mile check point, bullhorn in hand to cheer her on!
Edina even had custom race medals engraved for when she crossed the finish line!
26 miles later, Angela crossed the finish line, surrounded by friends and family cheering her on!
It’s More Than Work
I often tell people that in work, I’m playing three games. The first is whether or not we can build a business that does good work and provides value to clients. The second game is what we choose to do with the skills, profit, and time we have while we do the work. But the third game is how we can invest in the lives of the people in the room who are doing the work.
It’s this third game that I think my team won this weekend.
When I think back on any job I’ve ever worked, I don’t think anyone would have thrown me my own personal marathon to make up for the one I couldn’t attend.
Good culture is something everyone is after in their companies. I wish I had a better recipe to help people build it faster, but the equation is that people need to feel safe where they work, they need to feel loved by the people around them, and both of those things need to happen over a lot of time.
So to each of these incredible women, I’ll say this:
Edina, you finished your first marathon this year, and then you turned around and made sure your teammate got to finish hers. That is love and kindness and generosity that I admire.
Angela, you trained through difficulty, grieved loss, and still showed up and ran every single mile. A wildflower thrives in spite of not being planted or tended to in a garden. A wildflower thrives on the daily grace of God. You are that wildflower, and I am so proud of you.
I am so proud of you both.
