Today was a very special day for me on the career front. It was the special dinner with my team that I promised them for billing over $1 Million in sales this quarter on a $454,000 quota. But it was actually far more significant to me than just that. It marked the closing of a chapter, a chapter in which my team, and everyone on it, faced a mighty mountain, and overcame the mountain, both individually, and collectively. I will elaborate on this when I recreate the speech I gave at dinner, and more about this journey can also be found on my December 12 blog entry, 2019.
The day started with me feeling out-of-my-mind depleted. So depleted, that I did not roll into work until 9:40, and when I did finally make it, I felt so wiped out, and unable to face the work in front of my, that I called my dad, who talked to me for an hour about the panic attack I was still having about the worry that I didn’t go through my promotion process with perfect legitimacy (I really think I did, but panic attacks are fear-based and not rational, and require time and outside rational perspectives to help heal). I did almost nothing for the two hours I was at work, but I did spend some time with the team, process some e-mail, answer some questions and submit my forecast. I have to admit, this was a scary-level bad mental health day. I am still in recovery from how all of the stresses of December broke me.
But then at noon, we started our team ski activity. I skied on my own for the first hour or so. It was a miracle. Elixir to my bones and mind to be out in nature, competing with the terrain to master the hills around me. I eventually met up with the guys and skied with them for the next two hours or so. I skied Bishop’s bowl 3 times. It is a black diamond and by far my favorite run at Sundance. I’m actually getting to be a decent skier. I started out painfully bad and it was hard for my team to ski with me, although they did, just to be nice. Now, I’m still not as good with them, but I can run with them for the most part.
By then of skiing, I was feeling more like myself, which was good, because I had a very important dinner to attend, and I wanted people to have a great time, and I wanted to do my part to make sure people felt loved, valued, and appreciated for all the amazing work they did. I had told the team, that I would treat everyone including spouses to the Foundry, or if people wanted to eat at the Tree Room, I would pay for all the team members, and they could pay for their plus ones. The team opted for the Tree Room.
It was a very fancy and delicious meal. The ambiance was perfect. As comes so easily with my team, conversation, and gut busting laughs flowed freely. Stories were shared like the time that Max, Paul, and Jake hiked King’s Peak starting at 11PM at night and finishing at 11PM the following night and only getting four hours of sleep. They also saw a bear.
I wanted to say some words, but for whatever reason, I felt a bit shy to take the spotlight. I almost didn’t say anything, but then Joe, who has such good emotional intelligence, and new that some words would be appropriate for the occasion, asked me if I was going to say anything. That was just what I needed to get the courage to stand up and take some things. Below is my best effort at a recreation of what I said to the team (from memory). I’ve added a few things here and there to better articulate things not quite fully expressed in my impromptu speech, but this is very close in sentiment to what was shared:
“I want to thank everyone for coming out tonight. I want everyone to know that this story that this team has written, this is exactly why I am in management. It has been an incredible journey to be a part of. We were in such a different spot 2 years ago and even one year ago. In 2018, we billed 80% of our annual number. I started this year, truly wondering how things were going to go and fearing the worst a little bit. I don’t know for sure, but I strongly suspect that everyone in this room, considered quitting at some point on this journey. Everyone on this team has faced your own individual dark moment. And everyone on this team has chosen to believe in yourself. To bet on yourself. To bet on the team. To bet on Qualtrics, to bet on me. I’ve tried very hard as a manager to allow my reps space and time to develop into what you can become. But the other side of that is that you chose to give me time to develop and get better, and you bet on me as your manager, and stuck with me. We had zero percent attrition, which is absolutely unheard of. But that’s who we are. It has become our identity. We don’t quit. We climb the mountain. And we do it together.
I’m so amazed at the culture on this team. The way everyone works, together, laughs together, and has bonded. It’s been very hard being a Team Lead 2. Sometimes I’m out on business, sometimes I’m on vacation, and sometimes I’m just completely worn out. But this year this team has really stepped up and clicked on all cylinders even when I wasn’t able to give as much as I wanted. I cannot believe how this team has bonded and executed.
I hope your biggest take away from all of this is that you are capable of anything. You are all young, and as you go farther down in life, you will find that life can through crazy things at you. But I hope that you will use this time in your career, the time on Team Spartacus, the time when both you and the team climbed the mountain, overcame and did what seemed in possible, as a reminder to yourself that you are capable to succeed and overcome in the face of anything. I how you derive strength from your experience on this team, that will propel you forward in the future, both in your career and in your personal life.
I also want to say that it is very stressful to be a salesperson. It is also very stressful to be married to a salesperson. The job comes with a lot of ups and downs. I’m so glad the spouses came tonight, because this victory we are all sharing was a team effort for each of you, and is completely a joint success. Thank all of you for your support and efforts to make your spouse’s and this team successful.
Each of you have chosen a career in sales. I hope that you always stay in it. It is my favorite profession. My brother codes for Tableau, and makes more money than I do, and that is an amazing career. But the reason I love sales is because when I improve myself at my job, I am also improving myself as a human. Communication, character, improving at relationships, and negotiation, these things building me in my career also build me in my life. And when I become an amazing salesperson, it’s impossible to do that without also becoming an amazing human. To me sales is the most rewarding career.
But as you’ve all experienced, it comes with great difficulty. I’ve learned that so much of what we are paid for is simply to own our number. We might get lucky and bill more than we deserved, or we might get unlucky and bill less than we deserved, and there will always be things outside of our control, but we get our big paychecks by letting the business pin full ownership of our number on us as though it is completely in our control. And I hope what you’ve learned from this chapter in our history is that in sales, there will be ups, and there will be downs, but when the down hits, as longs as you work hard, keep believing in yourself and don’t give up, you will always, always always find your way to success, you can always climb that mountain. I hope you’ve learned that you can always weather the storm.
Thank you everyone again for coming out.”
I kept making mental notes to get a picture of everyone after the dinner, but then I completely forgot (dang it!). But here are a couple pictures of food as well as a picture of all the guys that went skiing (just missing Shane):
