The Things We Never Planned to Remember

Most of my mornings start about the same way, and I like that. The dogs go out first. Then I make a bowl of oatmeal, pour a cup of black coffee, and more often than not I have CNBC on in the background while I eat. By the time I finish breakfast I have usually heard about some company trying something new. Somebody is launching a product, somebody else is announcing a strategy, and someone is explaining where a whole industry is headed.

Then I get in the truck and drive to the office like I do most days.

A few weeks ago, somewhere on that drive, I tried to remember what had been on CNBC the morning before. I knew I had watched it. I could picture the studio and even remember who was behind the desk. But for the life of me I couldn't remember a thing they had said. That surprised me more than it should have, and it got me thinking about the conversations I somehow can still remember.

Conversations I Still Remember

Once I started down that road, I found myself remembering conversations from twenty years ago like they happened last week. I can still picture standing in hallways after meetings, talking with people whose names I haven't thought about in years. I remember something a guy told me backstage right before an event started. I remember a lunch conversation that stayed with me long after I forgot where we were even sitting.

The details aren't always all there when I reach for them, but I remember enough of each one that those moments still shape how I think today. It's a strange thing when you sit with it. A whole presentation can disappear from your memory while one sentence sticks around for decades.

The Part That Stayed

I've spent most of my career around meetings and presentations and live events, and every one of them starts with somebody hoping people will remember something specific. So much work goes into those moments. The message gets revised over and over. The presentation gets rehearsed until it's right. The lighting and sound and staging and timing all get worked out, because every one of those things shapes how people experience what's being said. That work matters, and I would never say otherwise. Still, here's what I've learned.

People don't always remember the thing we worked hardest to tell them. They remember whatever found a place in their own lives.

I've watched people forget an entire presentation and then repeat one sentence from it for years. I've watched someone bring up a conversation that happened while everybody was walking back to the hotel, even though they couldn't tell you much of anything that happened on stage that day. Nobody walked out of those moments planning to hold onto them. They just became the part that stayed.

Sometimes a sentence barely means anything the first time you hear it, and then years later you catch yourself repeating it, because life went and gave it meaning. I don't think any of us can call which moments those are going to be. The older I get, the more I notice it.

Tomorrow Morning

Tomorrow morning I'll probably make another bowl of oatmeal and pour another cup of black coffee, same as always. CNBC will be on again. I'll hear about some other company doing something important, and I'll pay close attention while it's on, and by tomorrow afternoon I may not remember much of it. Then something small will stay with me instead, and it won't be the big announcement or the moment anyone expected people to remember.

Years from now I'll still be thinking about one of those small moments, and the funny thing is I'll never know which moment it is until it's already long gone.