Ten days ago I stepped onto my native soil of Australia after two weeks in mandatory quarantine. It is wonderful to be home after a long time apart from my family and friends but it also feels overwhelming and surreal. To be in a country where COVID is so under control that people can go anywhere and don’t have to wear face masks is almost unnerving after nearly a year of the opposite. Restaurants are open. The sidewalks in Sydney feel like normal city sidewalks and people hug and shake hands in the streets.
To get here required two weeks locked in a tiny hotel room, with windows that did not open, cut off from any human contact save for the nurse who talked to me each afternoon to make sure I didn’t have any COVID symptoms. It was a harrowing experience, but also a valuable one. There were lessons to be had everywhere — about structure, self-discipline, gratitude, authentic leadership — and I took a few minutes in this video to record them.