Opinion: Harbouring life

Sydney Harbour. Photo/Ngahihi o te ra Bidois

Last weekend I presented a leadership keynote to Strategic IT in Sydney. To be more precise: their conference, my accommodation and my presentation took place at the Pier One Hotel which is based at the base of the southern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Just a two-minute walk and you are standing under the Sydney Harbour Bridge looking at the Sydney Opera House and the beautiful Sydney Harbour.

I had some spare time so I went walkabout and took in the activity of the harbour. I paid particular attention to the boating vessels. There were ferries that looked like they were racing as they came and went as frequently as bees to a beehive, boats obviously taking tourists on longer cruises were less frequent to visit the hive and fishermen even less so.

The police launch seemed to be in a hurry to get nowhere with uniformed officers looking through binoculars from the back of the boat like beekeepers or security bees minding the activity of the harbour. Smaller and occasionally not-so-smaller yachts lazily cruised the harbour like sharks as they looked for their next breath of wind to wake them from their torpor.

Then through the middle of this hive of harbour activity arrived the huge cruise ship. It was like a giant mothership honey bee from another land. Everyone seemed to stop whatever they were doing to watch the ship arrive and every vessel got out of the way. No doubt there would have been more people on the cruise ship then all of the people combined on every other vessel in the harbour, yet it did not seem to disrupt the harbour as it glided peacefully into its resting place accompanied by pilot boats.

The arrival of the cruise ship was a big deal.

All of this Sydney Harbour activity got me thinking about my children. I thought of how they were like those ferries in their younger years leaving to school in the morning and returning each afternoon, buzzing with the events of the day like the bustling passengers I observed disembarking the ferries that day. Weekends would see our children cruising like the yachts in the harbour looking for their next sport or chilling with friends; activity which would excite, motivate or tire them out.

The fishing boats at Awahou featured in their lives as well and you could say the police launch was there, too, as they spent time with their Uncle Ngarue and Uncle Waata who are leaders in the police force. Their uncles' first question being "How are you?" Like the policemen on the back of the launch looking through binoculars to keep them safe.

They are both at Auckland University now with our son, Eruera, in his third year of medical school and our daughter, Tumanako, is pre-med and they are enjoying their studies and time in Auckland. So nowadays they are more like that cruise ship.

Their arrival home is a big deal and they seem to meander in and out and everything in my world seems to stop as I make the most of the time they are in port, before they return to the open seas.

When I went walkabout in Sydney Harbour that day I did not expect it to reflect the lives of my children and the impact they have had in my life.

I am sure that if you consider the activity of that harbour and how it reflects on your life then you will find your own analogies and have your own thoughts. Just remember that there are two iconic features in that harbour as well, a world-famous bridge which people cross every day to connect and a world-famous opera house, where people sing and entertain and are happy.

We all need bridges and opera houses in our lives, too. Na te whakakotahitanga ka puta mai te whanaungatanga.

Ngahihi Bidois is a multi-award winning international leadership speaker, VIP host, author, leader, husband and father. See www.ngahibidois.com for more of his story.