Road Trip

Whenever I describe my typical travel schedule to young professionals, their eyes light up with excitement. Cris-crossing the country still suggests a life of glamour, I suppose, to those who have not yet over-dosed on airplane munchies. This week’s travel brought a bit more exhaustion than desired, but true confession, it was still fun.

My road trip involved four presentations in 36 hours in two cities, Cleveland, OH and Houston, TX. In order to arrive in Houston for a Noon presentation the day after an evening program in Cleveland, I needed to catch a 6:00 A.M. flight, which required leaving the hotel at 4:30 A.M. I freely admit, I am not one of those people who can wake up and be appropriately attired for a business meeting 30 minutes later. The wake-up call had to come in obscenely early that day.

Then there was the issue of proper nourishment. Before my pre-sunrise flight, I managed to grab a blueberry muffin and coffee—lots of coffee. As soon as I arrived in Houston, I dashed to my hotel, ironed a suit, closed a deal, and rushed to the lunch program. Just about the time that wait staff placed salads upon the tables, I began to speak. I ended just as everyone finished dessert. I left that venue and had all of 30 minutes before the next program began. A Diet Coke and a package of peanut M&Ms got me through the next session. When it ended, I grabbed a taxi, dashed across town to a hospital to visit an ailing friend, then hurried back to the hotel, where I began working on e-mail and decided a small bag of potato chips from the hotel mini-bar would get me through the night.

Business travel and food often isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But I wouldn’t trade it for a thing. In the past week, I delivered The Rules of Engagement, our business etiquette program, three times. Each time participants told me how thoroughly they enjoyed the program and how valuable its content is. I am so excited that we will soon be able to provide even more material through our Flash Cards for Professionals, which we’ll begin selling via the web in mid-Spring.
 

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