What matters most?

Monthly management meeting yesterday – held, as often is the case, at the beautiful home of our Finance Director Mike Hutchinson in Flushing, looking across Penryn River towards Falmouth harbour.

Mike’s catering is legendary and the first hour of our meeting occurs in the kitchen, where we all enjoy frothy coffees and catch up with personal and professional news as it’s been a while since we were all together in the same place.

Mike chairs the meeting and begins with a quick round-robin of what’s “good and bad” in the minds of those attending.

In the corner of the room, Simon and Ernie’s son, Harry, is comfortably propped up on the sofa – even at his early age he is learning to play quietly whilst we all pontificate about business – in fact we are using the time to train him as a future member of the team as you can see from the photo.

In answer to Mike’s question we take turns to mention our hopes and fears for Breathe Business.

Then it’s Bonnie’s turn.

“Well the good news is that I’m expecting a baby.”

The intake of breath (!) around the room is so tangible that the walls seem to lean inwards – even Harry puts down his keyboard and stares.

In a single moment, we contextualise the rest of the day.

What matters most is people, relationships and unconditional love.

Money, power, possessions, ego, assets - all trivial really.

People caring for people.

What else is there?

We are all thrilled and delighted.

And Harry will soon have somebody to play with at management meetings!