I attended a conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina Del Rey. You just don't get a better conference venue than the Ritz. The host organization spared not a dime of expense. The rooms were spacious and had a sweeping vista of the harbor. The food at every meal was simply outstanding and the wine flowed like, well, wine.
I learned a lot about software, hardware and the people who have learned to drive them well. I learned that you can always spot an extroverted programmer: He looks at your shoes when he's talking to you.
These people were girded with a panoply of electronic devices; laptop computers over which one could hunch and squint, teeny-tiny cell phones to yank out of ones' pocket and have animated conversations with unseen others. I saw a person deploy both of these devices simultaneously, while he was in a meeting. And texting? Don't get me started.
At the beginning of each session, the facilitator had to ask the crowd to turn off computers and cell phones. What a colossal waste of time and energy. The host had spent untold thousands of dollars to put on a terrific conference. People had traveled thousand of miles to attend a terrific conference, and there the damned fools sat, talking on cell phones. And if there was a problem, what were they going to do about it? If their office was burning, do you think their hose would reach that far? I think not.
Problems come in two varieties: 1) those that will work themselves out by the time you get back and 2) those that will wait for you. If the folks at home can't reach you, they can't share their problems with you and you can focus on what you were supposed to be doing in the first place.
One of the central issues in the selling business is: "What is the best possible use of my time right now?" Once you have determined that, the next task is to stay with that job until it is done and damn the distractions. Wherever you are, be there.
I learned this painful lesson more years ago than I care to divulge. I was attending a full-day seminar entitled "Time Power Squared," being conducted by a sterling fellow named Chris Heagerty. There were about a hundred of us huddled in a room at the Hyatt House, taking notes with abandon. We had each paid $395 for this seminar and that was one heck of a lot of money in those days. It's amazing how avidly you take notes when you pay that much for a seminar. In the morning session I had accumulated eight pages of single-spaced, hand-written notes on a legal length tablet. I was pumped up.
I called my office at the lunch break. Why? I don't know, it was just what I did. Rather like a subliminal message from God: "Hank, call your office." I did it automatically.
My secretary recognized me right off; she was good. "Hank, thank God you called," she said.
I'd been in business long enough to know that calls that begin like that are seldom good news for me. "What's the problem," I asked.
"It's Bob Walker and he's madder than a mashed cat," she said.
"What's he mad about?"
"I don't know, but he said if you don't call him right back, it's all going in the dumper."
"What's going in the dumper?" I pleaded, with a sense of growing doom.
"I dunno, he hung up."
There is an unwritten rule prohibiting any salesperson from going to a pay phone with more than one dime (yes, phone calls cost a dime, then). I got out of line and went to the gift shop for change. When I got back, I asked the other people in the line if I could have my place back. Even though the request was not funny to me, they laughed. I waited, dancing from one foot to the other, while three more people called their offices to get bad news.
I was a man deranged by the time I reached Sylvia, Bob's secretary. "Hank, thank God you called," she said.
"I've been hearing a lot of that this morning," I said. "What's the problem?"
"Bob is just insane. He won't even talk to me. He's been running around all morning, slamming doors and banging file cabinets and yelling, 'I'm gonna get that S.O.B.'"
I was concerned. "Well, let me talk to him. I'm sure we can straighten it out."
"I can't. He's on the other line, yelling at his attorney. I'll put you on hold."
She cut me off.
I rummaged around for another dime and called her back. "Sylvia, you cut me off," I screamed.
She said, "I know and I'm sooo sorry, but I was nervous and my finger slipped off the button and. . ."
"Stop sniveling you twit and let me talk to Bob," I bellowed.
"I can't. He just left. Burned rubber all over the parking lot."
As I mentioned, I had eight pages of notes from the morning session. From the afternoon session, I had nothing but one page of doodles and incredibly filthy words. I was physically at the seminar, but mentally and emotionally I was out trying to solve a problem over which I had absolutely no control. I lost half the $395 I paid for the seminar, but that's okay, I got that back in a week. What mattered is I lost a half-day of my life, which I will never get back and all from failing to heed the advice: "Wherever you are, be there."
Portable electronic appliances aren't the only devices designed to prevent our living in the moment. Take "call waiting," as an example. This is the rudest invention ever devised by man. You are on a call with me and your call waiting clicks in. You excuse yourself to talk to someone not more important than me, but to someone that might have the off chance of being more important than me. If that isn't rude, I don't know what rude is and I'm personally offended.
The past is a canceled check; the future is a promissory note. Only the present is the coin of the realm and the only time you can absolutely count on. Wherever you are, be there.
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