Lessons From the Road

Back when I was at Morgen-Walke / Financial Dynamics, I traveled a lot. I mean a lot. How much? Let's just say that United Airlines flight attendants started to recognize me, and the parking attendant at SFO actually learned my name. There was one crazy week in which I flew to LA on Thursday night, worked on Friday, flew back to Oakland that afternoon to head to Chicago, spent the weekend and two days in the Windy City, came home for a day of meetings, and took off the next morning for NYC.

Thankfully, those days are long behind me. Last week's trip to Denver was my first business trip in a couple of years. And it reminded me of some very important lessons:

• Having to half undress at security is universally inconvenient
• There's always one TSA agent that takes him/herself  too seriously, and one who is frighteningly lax
• No matter how comfortable, no hotel bed is ever a match for sleeping in your own bed with the person you love
• My kids (and friend Teresa) are always more interested in what my room is like than I am
• Convention / conference food is overpriced and not very  good 

But this trip also taught me some new lessons:

• I'm really great at psyching myself out with fear of the unknown
• But I have some really great friends, who can turn that doubt around - Bob Henline's simple, "You've got this" made all the difference

Most important lesson learned: 

• Coming home is always the best part of any business trip.