Congratulations 👏! Why aren't you happier?

A few weeks ago, I took my daughter to The Adventure Park for a lovely, outdoor mother-daughter date. It was about 75 degrees outside, and underneath the canopy of the park’s shady trees, I congratulated myself for facilitating such an enjoyable experience. That lasted until I started the “adventure” part.

Google calls The Adventure Park an “aerial forest climbing and zip-line course,” which sounds quite pleasant. I’d actually hosted Alice’s 11th birthday party there, and those fifth-graders all seemed to have a fantastic time. So I was not expecting to spend my afternoon inadvertently doing an intense core workout and repeatedly exclaiming variations of “are you effing kidding me?” and “how the hell do I cross this?” That was the climbing part. Here and there between the climbing “elements” are the zip lines, which were mostly fun but always ended with me slamming into a padded tree, convinced I’d given myself CTE. 

Okay, hold that memory of a 45-year-old, 5-foot-tall woman wondering (a) if she can still drive home and (b) why she spent $80 to do this.

🌳

In one of the final Dream Space classes, we talk about the emotional experience of going through brokerage for the first time. Among my many words of wisdom (please, someone, give me a book deal), are these: the big moments will feel anticlimactic. 

These “big” moments are ones like signing an LOI after months of negotiation or signing a lease after even more negotiation. From the outside, it would seem that these are milestone moments that deserve a congratulations! or at least a nice 👍, and while they are, technically, milestones, they just don’t elicit a celebratory response. 

When a first-timer is still in Dream Space, these moments feel like an eternity away, so I’m never quite sure if my prophecy will land. I once had a clairvoyant tell me that I worked for the oracle at Delphi in a past life, so people really should take my advice seriously.  

Anyhow, this is why I shed a little tear of joy when a Pedal Retailer – a Dream Space graduate who had just signed his first lease – sent this text:

This all feels as anti-climactic as promised 🤣. 

The text made me so happy, not because I love feeling vindicated (I do), but because it meant he understood that his feelings were completely normal. It also got me thinking…

What, exactly, makes a moment feel anticlimactic?

The answer brought me right back to the damn Adventure Park. 

Klimax is the ancient Greek word for “ladder,” so inherent to a climax is a movement up, up, up to an endpoint. So for moments to be climactic, they also have to be endpoints.

🪜 Going through brokerage, there is definitely a feeling of forward movement toward a goal, but it’s never climactic, because we’re not on a ladder. We’re on a series of cable-bridges that can look like a ladder from certain angles, but there's no endpoint to the effort. Every time we get across to the next tree, we’ve got a few steps before we’ve got to do it again. Why did we even agree to go to this place? This is definitely not for children! What kind of idiot pays good money to do this by choice?! Is that blood?

Just like my first (and last) experience at The Adventure Park, first-time retailers really have no way to comprehend what they’re about to encounter. Yes, there is some basic foreshadowing – signs saying “suitable for persons 12+” or “if you’re not a Navy Seal, prepare to die” – but it’s impossible to know how treacherous the journey will be until it’s already underway. As soon as you make it through one challenging element, there’s another one just around the corner. It’s one sideways ladder after another after another.

So at the very end – when there are no more core-bracing, hand-chafing bridges to cross – the moment doesn’t feel like an exciting climax. It feels more like relief mixed with contentment; you’re glad you stuck it out, but you’re mostly over it, and it'll be a long time before you’d volunteer to do it again. 

🎢 

We spend a good amount of time in Dream Space talking about the complicated emotions that begin in brokerage and become a part of life as a small business owner. When these definitive moments happen – like signing a lease – not expecting to feel neutral with a whiff of meh can rapidly spiral into why-am-I-not-thrilled-have-I-made-a-huge-mistake panic. Life as a retailer is a mixed bag; there are glorious highs and devastating lows. The more you can prepare yourself for the emotional ride, the better it’ll be.