My final weeks at Adobe are winding down quietly. Eighteen years. Thousands of meetings, hundreds of teammates and collaborators. And now: goodbye emails, a few video calls, people saying things I wasn't sure I deserved to hear.

They said I was a good leader. That I made space for people. That I listened. That I saw them. That I helped them grow.

I don't know if that's true - not consistently, anyway. But I'm writing down what they're saying, because I want to grow into it. The gap between who people think you are and who you actually are is the space where character gets formed.

On Wednesday morning, I boarded a plane to Orlando with our youngest son, Andrew. Thirteen years old. Five days at Walt Disney World. Three races. 19.3 miles. 143,582 steps.

And somewhere between Magic Kingdom and the bus back to the resort, he said something I'm still thinking about.

"Thank you for not being on your phone and just paying attention to me."

He wasn't being dramatic. He wasn't making a point. He just said it - matter of fact - because he noticed.

I almost didn't earn that. Most days I don't. The phone is always there, and the next thing is always pulling. Paying attention is harder than it sounds.

But this trip, I tried. I watched him pick the restaurants from the app - Yak & Yeti, orange chicken, new favorite. I watched him try rides he used to be afraid of - Everest, TRON, Flight of Passage, things he'd skipped on family trips because he wasn't ready. I watched him tell another kid on Tiana's Bayou Adventure, "It's fine. I've done it. You'll like it."

I watched him becoming someone.

Last year, I talked him out of building a lightsaber at Savi's Workshop. I was protecting something - the money, the scene, the precedent. This year I didn't. He picked the blade color without asking. He paid with his own money. He carried it out.

That's the trip, right there. The shift from protecting to releasing, from managing to witnessing.

He's thirteen. He's the same height I am now - I noticed it in Toy Story Land and I don't know when it happened. Sometime between last year's race shirt and this year's bib.

We ran three races together. The 5K on Friday was themed to Judy and Nick from Zootopia. The 10K on Saturday was Pooh and Tigger. The 10-Miler on Sunday was Joy and Sadness.

Joy and Sadness. That felt right.

When I crossed the finish line of the 10-Miler, they handed me the Coast to Coast medal - Disneyland in February, Walt Disney World in April. Two castles, one year.

Andrew was standing right there. He watched my face. He didn't ask me to explain. He saw and understood.

That's what paying attention does. It teaches you to see.

If you want to see pictures and read the whole trip journal, you can find it here: Yes, son, doing hard things can be fun too.

On the last night, we accidentally discovered a new nickname. I grabbed what I thought was honey mustard from the mobile order station, but it turned out to be honey packets. Andrew laughed for ten minutes.

"Honey."

That's me now. I suspect it will outlive the trip.

Here's what I'm learning:

The people at Adobe who said I was a good leader - they were responding to the moments when I paid attention. When I put the phone down. When I made space. When I saw them.

The son who said thank you on the bus - he was responding to the same thing.

It's not complicated. It's just hard. The urgent crowds out the important. The screen crowds out the face. The next thing crowds out the present thing.

But when you pay attention - really pay attention - people notice. Kids notice. Colleagues notice. And something shifts.

I'm home now. Five medals on the rack. One nickname I didn't expect. One chapter closing at Adobe. One chapter opening with Domus and everything I'm building and moving towards.

And one line I keep coming back to:

Thank you for paying attention.

I want to earn that more often.