Guy Reams (00:01.698)
Today's day 95, environments are created. You know, they say that the second best day of a person's life or a man's life is when he buys a boat. And the second best day, the first best day of a man's life is when he sells his boat. Well, here I am, I'm at my boat and...
Tomorrow morning I'm pulling it out, I'm taking it out of the harbor and having it towed away in a trailer because I'm selling it. And it doesn't feel like the greatest day of my life actually. It's kind of sad, you know? I think about the environment here that we spent a lot of time in as a family with our kids and stuff and I know that this boat was also home to my uncle and his kids so...
This boat's been everywhere. It's been in Lake Powell and it's been on the San Diego ocean. And so I'm sitting here thinking, wow, it's kind of a, it's, it's not, that exciting, but you know, all good things must come to an end. The boat won't, the boat won't last forever. It's getting old. So it's time to move on. But, as I've been sitting here by myself, cause I'm cleaning it up, getting it ready for long-term, you know, getting it ready for getting on a trailer.
as I'm thinking about it.
I've been pondering just what it takes, know, environments that are conducive of great times, good conversation, fun, relaxation, those environments are created. It's not, these environments don't happen by accident. You know, you, might've been to a place like I remember when I was younger.
Guy Reams (02:00.62)
I went to this family, this, family's house and, everything was highly organized there. There was definite rules. The family followed, but they had built these things, in throughout the house. But the main thing I remember is in their backyard, they had like a theater, not, not at like a movie theater, but like a real theater. Like it was a stage and, props and.
audience area, kind of a pit you could sit in. And what would happen is every weekend, the kids is just growing up, the kids having fun would go out and act out plays. I remember when I was there, the kids were acting out one of the Greek tragedies, which I thought was really curious as I saw this, you know, the 10 year old, nine year old for, you know, kids.
up there on stage acting out one of the one of the antagony or one of the one of the tragedies.
But I was thinking this family had deliberately created an environment where kids were play acting was play acting and reviewing literature and drama was part of their lives. That's what they did every day. And the whole environment was part of it. So I thought this family had deliberately and with intent created this environment. So as I'm sitting here at this boat, I'm thinking,
You know, my wife and I spent some time building this boat out. We, you know, got all the cool comforts and we made it look nice and we got some good stuff. We put it in here. And so I think, you know, you know, in my, you know, this is where we've spent a lot of time and I'm sitting here thinking, this is nowhere near the creature comforts of home. Like it's not even close, but yet, God, you know, when I come here, I just feel just more.
Guy Reams (04:00.296)
at ease, more at peace. And I think the reason why, well, I don't have all the stresses of home here, but I think more importantly is I, we deliberately and with intent created this thing so that we could relax. And therefore, when we come here, we just feel relaxed. So I don't know if you can really expect relaxation or a good environment to just happen.
I think you have to actually create it. You have to be purposeful in your design. So I think the first principle is to an understanding that good environments are created is that you must be purposeful in your design. The setup of the space, the lighting, seating, decor, acoustics, all of that stuff will either encourage people to interact with it or not. Intentional design will make people feel comfortable.
welcome and want to be there. We have one particular area in our house that just nobody wants to ever be in. And I think I know why, because it's just uncomfortable. But like our backyard, we spend a lot of time on and we want to be back there because it's really comfortable.
I think the same thing would apply to most any environment. Like if you were to create a digital environment, you know, at work, we oftentimes have conference calls and nobody wants to be on these things. They just suck. It's like, I don't want to be on a conference call talking into a camera, but I've noticed that every once in a I'll join some other company's digital environment and there'll be all these things set up so that you feel like you want to be there.
It's just interesting. Like they go the extra mile to make sure that everything is set right. don't know if you've ever been to a conference call online. You can tell when somebody has intentionally put meaning behind the design of how the, how the meeting of how the digital meeting goes. And then you can tell when somebody has no preparation whatsoever. And they're just turning on the conference call, which is most of them.
Guy Reams (06:13.804)
I think any great environment needs someone to set the tone. In our case, it's my wife. She sets the tone. Absolutely. I mean, when I came down here to this boat, you know, to me, it's like, whatever, it's a place to sleep. Who cares? But my wife, you know, she put all these little extra things in it, you know, like pillows and throw pillows and nice little blankets and stocked everything with all these little nice things. You know, when I come in here, I just like.
Yeah, you look around and it just feels nice. So she's the one that had the leadership to put forward the environment. But I think it's more than just the person that leads the decor. I think it's also the person who leads the host. If the host is open, has curiosity, is kind, creates that culture, then people that come into the environment will also want that.
I don't know if you've ever been to a restaurant. There's been restaurants. mean, I remember my wife and I went to a restaurant years and years ago. It was on the coast up north and the restaurant was just amazing. We loved it. The food was good, but it was really not about the food. It was about the environment. It helped that it was on the coast. mean, obviously being on the beach is hard to beat, but there was just something about the people there. Everybody was very friendly.
but also you just felt like you were showing up to your grandma's house. And I think there's no way that that happened on accident. Those people were very purposeful in creating that.
Guy Reams (07:50.552)
So we talk a lot about today creating safe spaces or inclusive environments. And it's easy to poke fun at that because we've overused those phrases. But honestly, when you find an environment that you walk into where you feel comfortable or at home, people put a lot of purpose behind that. They want to make sure that people feel included.
that no one feels left out. There's plenty of seats for everyone. That people can find comfort. That the environment is open enough where people can use it for what they want. It's interesting to think about how much intention. Like, I went to an Airbnb. We've done several Airbnbs over the years. Or, know, VRBO or whatever it is.
There's those that you show up to where you can tell they just simply have done the bare basics in order to flip the house into an Airbnb and to make money. You can tell what that's what their intent is. And then you ever once in a while you'll run into one where the people had a real clear intent to create an environment that would be great for people to live in and to visit in and to be there temporarily as they spent time in their family vacation.
I mean, you can tell the difference. went to one in Hawaii once and it was not that great. I mean, it wasn't like five star, but somebody had spent a lot of time just making sure that everything you would need as a family was there. And they just all these little attention to detail. And man, we remember that trip a lot. We loved that trip. We loved it. And I think back, why did we love it so much? I mean, we did a lot of fun stuff. We spent time as a family.
But as I think back about it, it was the environment that we were living in every day. That house was just designed well. And therefore, just felt like at peace at home. We felt like we belonged there. And I know that those people actually purposefully did that. So I'm kind of thinking about applying this to my life, as I'm saying goodbye to the boat. I'm thinking.
Guy Reams (10:10.946)
You know what? If my environment is stressing me out or I don't like my environment or if I don't like the way I feel in a particular place, then I have every power in the world to change it. I can make the environment the way I want. Like right now at my home office, I have an office where I spend a lot of time in there because I'm working a lot and it requires a lot of computer work.
And I've noticed that going in there, feels like sometimes it feels like drudgery. I mean, I've set up the environment perfectly. It's got everything I need. But as I'm in there, I just realize it's like, sometimes I just don't want to go in there or after a while just feels draining. So I'm thinking I could probably spend a real intentional effort to make that environment absolutely more
conducive of the activities that I'm doing. Like, I want to think. I want to sit and think, like really contemplate things I'm working on. The environment is not conducive of that. I want to feel rejuvenated and ready to take on the day. The environment is not like that. It's very stale and utilitarian. So I'm just kind of pondering that there's something really powerful and meaningful around the environments that we create.
And it's probably something we should really focus on, spend time really thinking about, be more intentional in the environments that we spend our lives in. I think they have a greater impact on us than we realize. And with that, I will say adieu.