The Rainbow

Duha means “rainbow” in Slovak, and the story of capturing this picture illustrates a personal anecdote about leadership.

On our tenth anniversary, we returned to Kauai. Gisele and I had been there for our honeymoon, capturing glorious photos our whole trip. But technology had advanced rapidly, and for our return trip we were armed with a serious camera, and the ability to create high dynamic range photographs. We’d brought our whole family – our kids were 6 and 7 – and we toured all across the island … but there were no beautiful rainbows.

On our last day, resigned to the lack of rainbow pictures (but with memory cards full of awesome scenery), we left Waimea Canyon and headed back to our hotel for a quick shower and to change before leaving to catch our redeye flight home. Suddenly, our son called out from the backseat, “Look! A rainbow!” We quickly stopped and pulled onto the shoulder. Carefully bracing my camera, I took the three photos that composited into the rainbow you see here.

Leadership often happens when you prepare for a set of events, tell your team what triggers to look for, and then listen to them when they tell you to act. All three elements are needed for a great result.