To hike: to take a journey from where you are to a destination of experience.

Sure, there is a place we are going, but the hike is even better if we love each step and are fully present in the moment! We get to soak up every sensory jolt along the way.

Life is full of different kinds of hikes during which we experience these sensory joys. The most obvious kind of hike is on trails in the great rustic outdoors. Then, we also hike on paths of personality, where we work hard on our relationship with our Honey. Another kind of hike is with our God, who breathes life into us on every trail where He leads. Finally, we hike the paths of commerce developing ourselves in the skills of business. Recently, I got to hike on one of these business “trails.”

The event was a professional development conference that my Honey had decided to attended partly because her friend and client, Kayla Fioravanti, was one of four business women leading the event. What a jolt to the senses to see real life examples of leaders in business, who have succeeded on a large scale. They were so real, and they coached us so that we could apply what they had learned to our businesses.

I gathered 5 tips for making every moment count:

1. Don’t hesitate—when you know something is good—jump.

Jump over schedules and sleep and go. I got my ticket for the event at the last minute because another attendee had gotten sick and couldn’t use her ticket.  I had to scramble hard to get loose from my day job, lose a bunch of sleep to get ready and deal with my general hard core need to be well planned and prepared.

2. Go with someone you love—feed on their enthusiasm for something they love.

My Honey has cowriterpro.com, clivethecat.com and midstreammakeover.com (under construction). She does decisive realignment of a writer’s message to match their audience; she is a writer, editor, creative collaborator, and of course—a hiker. It was with great enthusiasm that she told me about this ticket and the awesome things we would learn. She also wrote about her key take aways from this event—read them here.

3. Immerse yourself—don’t spectate, do!

Reach out and say Hi! I am an introvert as my go to comfort personality position, but I’ve learned that most people don’t know what to say to you either. I introduced us to everybody we could get to and asked questions to hear their story. The smiling responses and interesting stories brought joy to us and to the ones we met.

4. Apply medicine immediately—use what you learn when you learn it.

Right then and there: rub some in! Most of us who think we are thoughtful and intelligent struggle with at least a little pride. Some bit of reluctance holds us back because we want to figure things out and we want ideas to be ours. Poppycock! Use good new ideas right away regardless of the timing or the source.

5. Openly express joy—let others know that you are having a good time.

Relish the moment by declaring that you are enjoying yourself. Few things make me have a better time than to hear that the people I’m with express their joy in that moment.

Wow! We had two days of captivating lectures and mastermind round tables where we got to flesh out what to do next on our “business hike.” Saturday evening, we “hiked” a few blocks to dinner from the beautiful campus of Scarett Bennett to a trendy part of Nashville. We took this picture as a group as we waited for food.

I also couldn’t resist taking a picture with this pig.

The restaurant is cool because it is a treehouse and my monkey-ness was really strained as I refrained from climbing all over it. We ate some Nashville favorites and shared how we each got started in our businesses and what our passion is. We parted that night with promises of many kinds to encourage each other, to visit and keep up with each other online.

Then on Sunday, my honey and I went to Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and walked for about four hours viewing the thousands of tulips and enjoying the 3-D sculptures that were part of the exhibited works of Steve Tobin: Southern Roots. We relished or time together in the sun and talked about all that we learned. Later that night, we got out our calendars and filled in the next steps on our “business hike.”

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This faboulous event was 2 X 4 Live! Kayla Fioravanti (Selah Press), Anne-Marie Faiola (Brambleberry) Lela Barker (Lucky Break Consulting) and Donna Maria Coles Johnson (Indy Business Network) coached us for for two-days on how to take our businesses to the next level.

What trail have you been on to “sharpen your axe” recently and what did you learn?