Got back out on the road today after a very light last two months of travel, which followed a 3-month span of virtually no travel. I have to admit that I was hesitant to get back out on the road doing my thing, not necessarily for Covid-19 concerns but because this had just been possibly the nicest time in my career where I wasn’t always moving from place to place, week after week and coming to the verge of pure exhaustion by the end of every week.
Not that I didn’t want to be back out on the road selling my company and telling our story of how we have made our clients successful, but because I didn’t feel the market was there for people to buy what I was selling. It seemed like from the conversations and Zoom meetings I was having that people weren’t just going to buy from me because I had gone to see them. With clients buying more things (some in record number) than before, it was a time when I could spend a couple of months working mostly from my office.
But after a meeting this morning where a long-time dealer who has become a good friend of mine was walking me to my car, he said, “I know you don’t have to come down here, but you do. And you do it because you are passionate about my store and passionate about seeing me be successful, and I want you to know how much I appreciate that.” After hearing these words and exchanging “elbow bump,” which are now the modern-day handshake, the switch has just flipped to where I am recommitting myself to a life back on the road, doing what I do best.
Not to say it will ever be back to some of the travel days like before, but “It’s Time.” Covid-19 and 2020 have changed me for the better in so many ways, it is like counting my blessings. I am more attentive to my own self-awareness than before. There is so much more appreciation and happiness for all the people in my organization than ever before. It has heightened my appreciation for the finer details in my work environment and driven me to create new things and take more chances on potential opportunities. It has taught me to be a better closer in that you might as well ask for the business until they tell you to never talk to them again. Last, but maybe most important, this has given me a deeper appreciation for my family and taught me to stop, put the phone down, quit looking at social media, and simply enjoy the moments.
Everything in my life is about TIME. And while I joked that Covid-19 and 2020 were simply a Time Out in my life, it is now time to get back out, and more aggressively than ever before with a whole new set of skills.