A Hike at Sourlands Preserve

On March 1st, Kyo and I hiked the rock-strewn trail winding through the Sourlands Preserve, a beautiful, unspoiled forest in the middle of central New Jersey.

That’s one of the things I love about New Jersey — it’s got such a terrible reputation for pollution and mobsters and industrial wreckage, and yet it is literally filled with oases of quiet beauty like this gorgeous mountain reserve. While you are there, it feels like you are in a distant region, untouchably far from suburban sprawl. The reality, of course, is that nothing in New Jersey is too far from anything else. We’re all squeezed together in this patchwork state.

At any rate, this hike was the perfect way to welcome spring into our lives. It felt like the plants and animals and even the boulders around us were just gathering their strength to grow and bloom again.

As we walked, Kyo and I talked about our life and business together, hatched some plans for new projects, refined some ideas that have been hanging around for a while, discussed solutions to problems, and sometimes just stood quietly and listened to the creek burbling past and the leaves rustling as hidden animals skittered away.

It occurred to me that having a business hike instead of a business meeting might be a good way for companies to make progress on important issues.