Perspective: Positive
By: Michael Beiter
A client I work with is rounding out his first year and heading into his second.
His biggest challenge is that he travels a couple of times per month for work. At each spot, he is there to sell. Admittedly, he says the selling his CEO and he does is on such events' fringes. Not in the conference rooms, meeting halls, and expo stalls, but at the bars after hours and at dinners. This is where the wining and dining happens.
“I’ve gotten much better at not getting hammered at these events and ordering a salad or high protein option for dinner and skipping the burgers and fries. My CEO and I both noted how moderation makes us feel much better the next day. Rather than losing sleep, being dehydrated and hungover, we have a glass of wine and wake up ready to get after it again the next day.”
Amazing.
We made sure to mention how odd it is that drinking, overeating, and business are so intricately entwined in our culture. It’s not good that we need to be liquored up and overfed for business deals to take place, but that’s the way it is. Fighting back against that culture is hard because doing so makes you stick out like a sore thumb. You’re probably familiar with group-think where it’s easy to go along with how the group you’re part of thinks. In these instances, it’s very much group-eat and group-drink. It’s odd that more CEOs and leaders don’t suggest abstinence from alcohol, healthy eating, and going to bed on time for their sales teams at these meetings. If that was the norm, more sales would happen, respect would be gained, and relationships fostered.
Lastly, my guy has trouble giving himself credit for what he has done rather than what is left to be desired.
He has worked out more in the last year than he has in his adult life, including starting his most recent birthday with a gym session - something he has never done before. He has also completed more food logs and had more conversations about his eating and exercise than ever before. These are all milestones to be celebrated, yet pessimism and negativity bias tend to convince us to focus on what we haven’t done over what we have. Ef that.
