Today was an incredibly stressful day for me. I woke up at 6 and went straight to work on a point of view document for a deal we are trying to win. I’m still feeling a lot of stress over trying to figure out when I should lean in and do something myself and when I should expect my team to do it. It’s a hard balance for me to find. I then worked a full day with several meetings and felt completely tapped out around 3, which was fine because my meetings were over at that point and I could then quietly and at my own pace (including some resting) work on my tasks.
Around 6:00, we met my boss’s boss, Lucas, and his wife Kim, who are both great friends of ours for dinner at Shoots. It was wonderful and pleasant to see them as always. I was having a great time, until I referenced how bad my team’s pipeline is right now and then Lucas started to discuss that with me. It was an incredibly stressful conversation for me, not because Lucas was being rough, but rather because I’m failing so badly right now in terms of pipeline and billings that it was just so stressful to discuss it with one of my superiors and strike the right balance between taking ownership for not being in a better spot without painting a picture that I haven’t been working hard, because I definitely have and I don’t want him to think otherwise. Our lack of pipeline has been seriously on my mind all week, and especially after Wednesday when my boss had a tough, but fair and measured conversation with me. My pipeline is the lightest in the entire region by far. It’s so hard to be back at the bottom! I’m know we will come out on top, but it is so stressful to be in a turn-around situation again, and the reality is despite all the distractions my reps were dealing with last quarter (including a hospitalization and a very disruptive death in the family), the fact is I wasn’t focused on pipeline the way I am now. I took my eye off the ball and its embarrassing that I’m still learning the lesson after 8 years in sales that I need to be tenaciously focused on driving on my team every single day. Layer onto that that it can’t be just me fired up about driving pipeline, but somehow I need to activate reps, who I don’t control, to do more, only through my influence, and it is a very very very tough challenge.
Then the conversation with Lucas pivoted and he said that the head of the Asia Pacific sales team wants a manager from headquarters to come train various offices and instill some of the tried-and-true processes and values from the AE team at headquarters. Lucas offered that opportunity to me!! I was so grateful for the opportunity. Lily and I just started talking about how to have international experiences for my resume (I want to lead a global sales organization one day) and for the kids exposure, but we just couldn’t figure out how to make it work in our lives right now. This 2-4 week tour right now seems like the best possible scenario considering everything in our lives right now. We were over the moon, and also very stressed. It was a lot to take in. We already planned a big France trip this year, and finances are already tight from me having a down sales year (and Qualtrics stock being down right now). Also, I’m in a turnaround mode with my team right now, so the thought of trying to have a successful year in spite of being gone another 2-4 weeks after Europe all sounds very stressful. Additionally, at home, Lily researched travel in Mumbai, and it sounds very daunting with children, especially since I’ll be training at work during the day. Still, despite all the obstacles, we settled on feeling super grateful for the opportunity knowing that it lines up exactly with our life goals right now with being as minimally disruptive as possible. It was a lot to think about!
After dinner, I was incredibly stressed. My stress was already high from the work day, and then the pipeline conversation with Lucas and the news about Asia was too much. I grabbed desert with Lily at waffle love (which was so fun) and then we put the kids down and watched TV, and then walked and walked and walked until 12:35. Lily just listened to me talk and talk and talk because I was so full of stress and anxiety. It was an incredibly touching thing for me and I felt so supported. I just needed to talk about all the pressure I was feeling at work, and she was really there for me. I’m completely in love with that woman.
