What do a lightning storm, a white suit jacket, and a barbecue competition that ran out of food have in common? They all showed up at Burlington River Days 2026 — and they all left Chris with something worth talking about.

This week's episode is a little different. Fresh off three days on the riverfront (and one very memorable Saturday night with a multi-platinum rock band, a delay, and skies that opened up right on cue), Chris shares three leadership lessons straight from the after-action review — one he got right, one that's got him questioning conventional wisdom, and one he's still learning the hard way.

Three Leadership Lessons:

• Don't fret over what you can't control. For an entire week leading up to an outdoor festival, Chris didn't open his weather app once. That was a choice — and it paid off. When a storm rolled in Saturday night and delayed the headlining act, the plan they'd built did its job. The lesson: know what you can't control, build your contingencies, trust your people, and don't let uncertainty eat your mental bandwidth.
• "Be yourself" — but maybe not always. Chris developed a full-blown character for Burlington River Days' social media: white suit jacket, Panama Jack hat, irreverent viral videos. It generated hundreds of thousands of impressions and was completely unlike who he is the other 51 weeks of the year. So what does that mean for the authenticity we're all told to lead with? Chris doesn't have a clean answer yet — but he's asking the question, and he's inviting you into the conversation.
• Set clear expectations. Work backwards from the end goal. The barbecue ran out of food in ten minutes. The beer lines were long. The common thread? The committee knew what they were doing and why — but they never got explicit about the visitor experience they were trying to create. What should someone feel walking away from this event? What stories should they tell Monday morning? Without that clarity defined upfront, communication downstream gets fuzzy. Chris has preached this one before. He still dropped the ball. He's owning it.

Key Takeaways:

• Worry is a tax on mental bandwidth — and it doesn't change the outcome
• There may be a meaningful difference between inauthenticity and context-specific performance
• Working backwards from the customer's experience, not just your organization's goals, changes how you communicate with your whole team
• Overcommunication isn't about more meetings — it's about getting alignment on the end state and repeating it until it sticks

Chris wants to hear from you. Got thoughts on the "be yourself" question? Reach out at chris@parksandrestoration.com, use the contact form at parksandrestoration.com, or find him on the Burlington River Days Facebook page.