by Dom Kotarski
The rules were few but the stories plenty.
Rule 1: Always listen to your guides
Rule 2: Your guide may or may not be speaking the truth
Running joke on the river: “How do you know when your guide is lying?”
Answer: “When he opens his mouth to speak.”
Joking aside if that’s even possible, our guides were extremely professional, laid back, fun and full of legends (some true) about the river and the countryside.
The ultimate way to build your team rapport is to take them rafting down the mighty Thompson River in B.C. Canada. Last weekend was an amazing experience for my most important team, Team Waschko/Kotarski.
The 5 “W’s” & an “H”
Who: You and your wife – The whole family – Go solo to meet people – Bring your new team to meet each other – Your old team to enjoy a break and the change from office scenery – Young, Old, Fit, Not fit, everyone can do it.
What: A Fabulous 2 day Fantasy Island rafting trip beginning in Ashcroft and floating down the Thompson River until it merges with The Fraser River in Lytton.
Where: Lytton BC on the Thompson River about 2.5 hour drive north east of Vancouver.
When: In the summer months July through August.
Why: For me it’s because my wife loves adventure and I love tagging along. Plus it’s always nice to meet new, fun interesting people and experience that “oh-so” Fantastic Feeling of accomplishment… We did it! We came! We went!,We conquered!
This kind of adventure you can do in conjunction with your normal monthly or quarterly staff meetings. It’s fun, relatively safe, thrilling, and will definitely give you, your team, your family or friends plenty of great stories to re-live long after the experience. Remember the time you…fell off the boat, fell into the boat, got flattened by the wave, landed on top of that cute girl/guy, screamed your lungs out?
For us it was all of those plus; The amazing views of the canyon walls, sighting a coyote running along the cliff , watching Bald Eagles soaring above us ,seeing little creatures (voles and shrews) run along the canyon walls, deer rustling just outside tents; and the added extras of team-paddling, tent building, and brushing our teeth in River water.
For your team you can expect a trip like this to:
- Share strengths and boost team spirit
- Build support and trust
- Enhance innovation and creativity
- Strengthen personal and team resilience
- Empower action through commitment and accountability
- Build stronger relationships
- Show who your natural leaders are
How: Just book and show up with some bathers, your toothbrush, your attitude, your lust for adventure, and Team Hyak does the rest.
The legendary stories begin the minute you get your gear loaded onto the boat and cast off. We learned that Big Wave Dave proposed to his now ex-wife by jumping out of his wet suit and into a tuxedo on a well known bend of the River Thompson while riding the rapids. The other half of his story is even more interesting, but we were sworn to secrecy and you quickly learn that what happens on the a river rafting experience stays on the river.
When I was a little boy my father took me tubing down the Hiwassee River located in North Georgia at the base of The Rockies. A River rapid run always starts out a bit slower maybe 1 or 2 grade and gest increasingly more challenging and difficult towards the end for the Grand Finale. The last big rapid known as Devils Gorge scarred and thrilled me so much that from the first time I conquered/survived the thrill of fast water, I’ve respected and loved river rapids ever since.
Because of my love for outdoors and thrills, I’ve taken my sales and corporate teams on many outdoor team building exercises over the years. So far we’ve covered 5 continents with only Antartica and South America to go. And after every event I think, “Wow that was great we should do more of this.”
The fact is my best teams have always been the ones where I’ve heavily invested in Trips and Events outside of the office environment.
And a short weekend rafting experience is a great way to make sure you’re not always just meeting at the pub. The cost will be roughly the same but definitely not the experience.
Luckily for me, Christina my wife (aka The Motherprenuer is an author, speaker, adventure junkie and creator of MotherpreneurTV) is always organizing fun and adventurous things for us to do. This last one was a doozie. We left the kids at home alone for the weekend(they were happy as we discovered our 17 year old took the opportunity to have smallish party. We knew something had gone down when we came home to a clean house -which doesn’t make sense considering we have three teenage boys?) while we drove North 2.5 hours to take a weekend trip on the Thompson River. We went with Hyak River rafting and what a great outfit they are. It was really well organized, As soon as we arrived Jim tells us to park our car and go get in our wet suits. All we needed was a helmet, paddle (your lifeline), a wet-suit and splash jacket and we were on the bus to take us to the launch site. Already we started making new friends and enjoying the camaraderie of our fellow adventure enthusiasts.
When we arrived everyone pitched in to unload our gear and pack it on the two rafts. There were 13 of us going from all walks of life and different towns across BC. We were given a thorough briefing and safety instructions and were ready to launch.
The weather was just perfect for to enjoy all the great scenery, which reminded me of all the old John Wayne westerns I used to watch growing up. The water was swift and strong and the rapids were a grade 1-2 on the first day. We got used to rowing together and were given instructions for what to do in case of an emergency. The jokes and laughter were always flying. Kirsten loved to knock her husband Kurt on the head with a paddle every chance she got. This was obviously to keep him in line. They were celebrating their first couple’s holiday without their children in 20 years. Their grown up kids are now both too busy with working and college to be able to mooch along.
Some single ladies were on the trip to enjoy the adventure and possibly meet some cute rafting guides and another young couple with a couple of friends were looking forward to a great journey.
Once we randomly chose our rafts we had to learn to work as a team. We didn’t start out paddling in unison so our poor guide had to do most of the heavy rowing but after a few hours we developed
some hefty power behind our strokes. It’s amazing how much harder you row when your guide says “row harder” so we can get through “The Gorge of Death.”
I was amazed at how quickly we developed our paddle-work by day two in order to be able to propel our raft through the potentially treacherous grade 3 & 4 rapids on our second day. We blitzed the Frog, Cutting Board and Jaws of Death with only a few mishaps but no flipping and no one going overboard unless they mouthed off too much 🙂
My Top 10 lessons I learned from rafting that parallel life and businesses…
1) You can’t beat the current of powerful rapids, you can only learn to maneuver safely through.
2) Laughing and Joking with each other is the key to enjoying the journey.
3) There’s nothing that tastes better than an outdoor BBQ and some beer.
4) Never underestimate the soulful power of sitting around a campfire for your evening entertainment.
5) Be sure to attach all of your tent guy-lines. A nice gush of wind dislodged two corners on the front of our tent and gently woke me up by pushing the back side of our tent over my face. I thought a bear had visited Fantasy Island and was ready for a midnight snack.
6) You don’t’ need an oven to bake a delicious chocolate cake when a make shift sand oven will do the trick.
7) Women love rafting instructors and rafting instructors know how to keep a crew entertained. I didn’t have the luxury of having a woman instructor…maybe next time.
8) You learn very quickly to look out for, care for, help and be there for your fellow crew members.
9) Everyone loves a bit of adventure and hitting the mighty Thompson River Grade 3 & 4 rapids will not disappoint the thrill seekers.
10) We very rarely regret the things we do only the things we don’t do. Take your team, your partner, your kids your friends on a mini adventure and I know you’ll come home safely with some great stories s to tell.
Let me know about one of your amazing journeys, maybe I’ll join you.
Dominic Kotarski – author of “The Making” and Founder of Sales Success Academy
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