Back home after a quick three day sales meeting.

Sat through two full days of presentations and another day of meetings.

Survived two nights of food, booze and challenging conversation.

And in the end - it’s the 1:00am bar conversations that really stood out - and actually meant something to me. All the other stuff was the side dish, the potatoes next to the steak.

And the steak … it was delicious. It was fortifying. It was life-giving.

You see, when a person stands up in front of his colleagues and gives his projections for the year or whatever else he or she has been asked to drop into a nice & neat template - rarely do you get anything other than a peanut butter sandwich. Occasionally someone serves up a Dagwood, and you suddenly transform from someone barely awake to someone very much alive. And you start to believe (from one guy with passion, commitment & the ability to inspire) that you CAN win the game. Imagine what are army of those guys could do!

But I digress….

Back to the bar. Back to 1:00am.

Outside the confines of the template is where you really learn about people. About whether or not you want them on your team. About whether or not you can commit to them.

And what I learned is this - I am surrounded by more great people than I thought.

Sure we spent lots of time complaining and bitching about all that is broken, but we also spent MORE time talking about how to fix it. And now that I think about it, it was the ‘fixing it’ conversations that were the most passionate, the most loud, the most engaging. To me, that indicates the needle is pointing North, and we’re heading in the right direction. When the compass is broken, you are truly lost. Our compass is OK.

But even more than those conversations, it was the other non-work related conversations that had the most value to this trip. It is those conversation that tell you whether or not you can commit to a human being instead of committing to a sales manager.

It is those conversations that build a team worth being on.

When real sharing takes place we are all transformed from colleagues to friends - to family. And that is the only kind of people I want to work with. Call it idealistic or crazy or fluffy - call it what you will, but that’s what I need to feel alive - and only when I’m truly alive am I capable of giving my very best. And there is no better feeling in the world than giving your very best to something.

When a former special ops guy shares experiences with you that make you feel 100 emotions at once, from the very dark to the very light, and for a split second - a brief fleeting moment - becomes vulnerable - well, that touches your soul. I don’t think I will ever forget that second in time when his eyes softened and he became something other than stalwart.

In the end, the greatest takeaway is having a better understanding of who and what I can and will commit to.

And that really is the only way success can be had.