at a wine bar.
A scene
from the day …
Zen
2/26/20
New tone to everything.
New sight and feel, read and perspective. Today, one of the more productive and forwarding speaks of my life, certainly in my AE story. Was thinking again about my AE piece, and how what you do and how you do it, whatever the complexion and composition of your practice, enjoy yourself. Mark often will simply tell me, in response to my flight plan (which I don’t even have to send but I do for his reactions and insights, and it keeps me writing), “Enjoy!” Or, “Enjoy your day!” I need do that in louder fashion, in more proverbial pulse and more erratic joy storms.
Last night, my babies reminding me to enjoy, have fun… do what you want, develop your own form of production and narrating the day. Go at prospecting new business in that walk, in that lean. I’m learning about myself, these past 4 or so weeks. That I’m more than merely in control of my own narrative. I choose the narrative to begin with. I fall and or folly, it’s my election. Something I decided.
Today’s notes, all from what I see in this ‘About Everything’ consideration and connection with my movement. And everything right when it happens… that is, no editing. Just post it. Speak the IT to it all. As long as you speak kindly, and truthfully, there’s no harmful misstep possible. Even if you were to be “reprimanded”, or “talked to”, there’s instruction in such.
Account Executive is just a title. Two words. What hold recipe and radiance is the manner in which you write from that tag. About…..EVERYTHING. Writing here in one of my older writing spots, at a small square back table, listening to music that’s already playing from walls, and seeing everything as an opportunity. What’s said, the people around me. The way the kid talks to his father (just seated at left, tall table), teaches me to be more curious than instructional when seeking new business. We’re all AE’s, as I see. Everything we do is a search for something, and a play of sorts, looking for a gem, or not then a lesson… for growth, or elevation, exploration. The feel to this new sight, result of occurrences recent, humility among other things. Not sure if empathy, but composure, composition. A few nights ago, Dad telling me those stories about his early career days, and where I am in this AE book. I need be more into turns, corners, shapes, people as he was in his tellings.
Waking earlier than I have in much time, this morning to be at that leads group in San Rafael. The drive. Not sure what precisely I learned from it, but sharply appreciated the hour, the dark, the others on 101 South with me… Thought of wine, waking to dark to harvest lots and blocks as my sister has over and over, year atop year. There was not so much a new tone to the drive, but a re-emphasized tone. The sight, feel and visual of everything around me from when I bought my 4-shot latte at 12 & Mission to turning onto 101 from 12, a reminder. I’m choosing what’s written, from disposition to Composition.
2/24 –
In the office. Will be in field later, but this morning starting with sending emails. A shit ton of them. Just saying hi, introducing self… no more than 4 lines. Meeting prospect at 12:45, then another meeting closer to 3 I think. 9:19 currently. May go back to Petaluma and visit some architects, or digital marketers, marketing firms, anything fun. Not making it into Marin as I’d hoped.
Was at winery a little later than I’d wanted. Got burritos for Dad and I from Su Casa, a place I haven’t visited in years. Was quite good, if you want to know, and if you’re ever in that part of Santa Rosa. Small little family joint I’ve been frequenting since…. Honestly, I can’t even remember.
Woke early today, but not as early as I’d hoped. Story of stories for this AE, but even still I’m ahead of everything so far today… reports in, expenses and those pain-in-the-ass Google Driving directions sent to where they need go and be. And here I be, in my AE read.
Some people want me to slow down and I fervently refuse. Tonight in class, talking about essays… a lab of sorts. Forgetting essay templates and design, orthodox instruction. WRITING…. What I’m doing now. Will start with letters in a bit. Actually, will have one email and send it everywhere.. again, no more than four lines. I could be overthinking…. I am. So stop. Remember your own advice, Mike.
Done with latte, will be switching to water in a moment. Need a Bubbly water. Love those things. Coffee anymore makes me feel agitated, and not composed, or assembled with ideas. I feel self-rushed and sped. Not at an advantageous rhythm, or beat. Too many voices here in office. Want to go to coLAB, but that’ll cost. Shit…. And no more coffee spots. Dirty, loud, disruptive.
So where does this leave me… where can I get the most done? Spend the $20 for a day at coLAB, or stay here so I can run for an hour… No, can’t run. Left Garmin at home. Could run at 24… see what I’m doing? More thinking than production.
Staying where I am. Break soon.
In a stall. Don’t know how to start prospecting…. Get out of Sonoma County. Marin and Berkeley geos… Restart computer. Google Maps is just being a devil presently. Stop where I am in this paragraph, and restart this devilish laptop. Mood falling, have to recover, for fully capitalizing on my Now…
Up to leave soon. Haven’t had that much of my latte. I feel something in this day. Can only credit music, that my phone is actually working, or the wifi is. What do I want from wine, today… means to more money. Now, more than ever, every penny is significant. I will make it so approaching expenses will be no match for my work ethic and the story I put into the world.
Not teaching over Summer, so I need to milk these two courses I’m teaching both with writing opportunity and marketing myself. SELF. Not any one company, or project or product.. but MY brand. Which is what…. Writing, learning, loving, living, more positive pulses as Mom reminded me. Noted… so noted and actuated. Some people just want the opposite of joy. I won’t allow any such vile magnetism pull my loving conception of life, mornings like this, grandiloquent days like the one ahead of me at Lancaster… that beautiful property, the people that come in with and for their love of wine, Cabernet, Sonoma County… This is a day to celebrate, no matter what other’s with their pessimistic jaw would jabber.
2/23 –
Starbucks on Vine Street.
Of course the music isn’t working. Rather than let a mood land, I embrace everything around me. Not so much embrace but study… these older men talking politics, health care, the debates, socialized medicine, nothing I’m interested in. I’m more prone to study the baristas, and how quick they make everything. How their system, these kids, is so flawless and efficient. Many of my aims over the past couple days I didn’t appease, or hit. So now I do in reverse. Rather tan make a list of things I’ve planned on doing, or plan on doing, catalogue and inventory what you’ve done. I’ve sat to write. Hoping to finish or actually start the ‘A…E’ piece. Written much of it in my head, but not typed a thing. Being an Account Executive has little to do with merely the accounts, and rather than be anything executive your self treat each existing and prospective client as executive. In fact go beyond that, far beyond that. The ‘good neighbor’ ideology. And it being about everything, the AE life itself, begs and challenges one to incorporate everything into your practice. Not re-write who you are, but be more creative in your approaches to conversations, prospecting, everything.
Since becoming an AE, I’ve seen sales differently. I’ve blended past me’s from other professions such as teaching at the JC and working at wineries (like I’m set to do today), and just do so in different containment. It’s about everything, being an AE… being a speaker, a personal organizer, a writer, a negotiator yes but more a connector of ideas.
I have to stop in this idea blaze and note the music is working, so now much more beat in my key slaps. Hoping to surpass 2000 words in this sitting.
About everything…. Everything you are and want to do, want to see in your story. I’ve noted before I’d like to have my own sales & marketing agency, stemming from blogging about my AE observations and educational echoes. Starting the week with prospecting targets, taking notes on them, setting calendar reminders…. You’ll find that time not only becomes a factor in the AE story, but it frames everything. Become an astute steward of your hours and days, the blocks on the calendar, and everything becomes music, or whatever you love. Make the AE step and beat whatever you wish it be. Don’t overthink… and in some cases don’t think at all. Follow impulse, measured and calculated chance. In this being about everything, it is about YOU, and everything you are and were before have the Account Executive tag….
Sat to write, started notes on the AE piece, which I’ll submit to Mark and see what he thinks, or not submit it expecting reaction, but just so I know (!!!) he has my thoughts, and my musings on AE life are documented.
Transferred monies. Going to follow through with wine blog idea, ‘vinovinevin’, and that will be the last blog url I purchased for years, as I can see. More writing, less fixation on blogs and tech… that’s another thing for the AE pages…
Don’t get wrapped in the tech of it all. A basic or slightly more than beginner’s vocal on the involved technology is beneficial, but this is a story about you and your connectedness to business owners… other human beings. Like a colleague told me, “People buy from people they like.” So true. More than true. It’s, as I estimate, a prime and principle premise for what we do. It’s law.
8:50am. Could fit in another 35 minutes or so. The baristas continue with their ninja moves behind that bar. They just make drink after drink with tireless smiles on their faces. How do they do that. What is their formula for their mood, and how sped they move, swiftly like gravity and physical laws are only something to consider. I enjoy the music, an older Thievery track, and look up… lady with her daughter, daughter gets up to use restroom and mom on phone, looks like texting someone. I start to miss my kids but don’t let my sensibilities be tugged one way or another, even toward my babies.
Young lady sits down at table, far end away from me with laptop. Then does something on phone.
Aims for day … sell at least a case of wine.
Know I said I wouldn’t do this, but I’m going to….
Another, three blog posts, to any of the three blogs—
Interrupted by a former, or I guess still current co-worker at Foley, Chris T. Customer Service Operations Manager. Syllabic title, no spite. He was and still is one of the people I respect most in the organization, and even he agrees that when you can be in the wine industry as I am, NOW, and just enjoy it and have fun that’s how one should enjoy wine, and be with wine, interact with her.
New beat into ears, sip latte. All of today has to be music, with beat, notes, a certain key. Young lady in front of me jotting something onto page, spiral-bound notebook. Definitely a student… think she’s writing an essay, or that’s what I write her doing. This 100k project, an essay project. By the end of it, less than 94k away, I’ll be living by my essays in tandem with Sonic, “teaching”, and the wine project…. Then I have another idea, that vinovinevin be a wine blog from a tasting room person’s perspective. Not sure what that means or how that will be connotated, but I know what I’m thinking…. Talking to people, same as with the AE story, ask them questions about their story, what brought them there… don’t sell so much, or try to sell. Essays are not proposals, they aren’t even necessarily proclamations. I see essays as views, a confirmation of sight, of conviction, or curiosity. This beat has me writing like an avalanche, one that won’t stop even when it reaches flats.
Much needed phronesis.
8:13pm
Still working. Or not working, but noting. Can’t remember what other aims for day were. Working on wine operation, business or venture, or maybe it’s just still an idea. Taking tonight to collect, introspect… One last glass, and I wonder what this Zin has to say that the others haven’t. May go to bed soon. Wake early, go for run, the Lawndale run which I haven’t done in a while, and not sure I spelled it right. Who cares. I just want to write tonight, so I am. Not liking how I look forward to Fridays now. Why is that. Probably because of this whole thing. And it’s just a thing in my Now, that I can remove, surgically… I’ll be a surgeon in these freewrites for self and freedom and what I think I know and need do in this Now.
Tasting tomorrow at DuMol. Finally. Idiot that I am I missed the appointment today… pretty sure I made it for tomorrow at 10 but they called me today saying it was for today at ten and that they were worried about me… not sure why, but I appreciated it. Wine.. plan on drinking a good amount tomorrow, and writing about it.. and the run up those Kenwood hills. 8:13… a bit early to go to bed, or maybe just perfect. Wake at 4-something and write, go to Starbucks down the Road, or another one so someone doesn’t surprisingly find me.
Can’t find any paths out there, but I didn’t look that hard. Might take Healdsburg, or Sonoma. Park by Sister’s house, or something. Either way, I’m running. Maybe not eight miles like last Saturday, but I’m getting out. Tasting at DuMol re-scheduled for 3pm. Can’t forget that.
Noticing now the cell phone is death. Death to writing. Death to all this, any attempt at production. So I set it down. I actually slightly slammed it to this table at Mom and Dad’s house. One more sip of this Zin… And I sip it. So there’s no more distraction. Thinking again about the run tomorrow, up the hills and onto Kunde’s property. Should I… fuck yes I should. I need a run tomorrow that tests me, truly. Pretty sure I can log around 9, or maybe ten. Why do I number in some lines, then spell in others. I blame the week, I blame this shit I’m going through, I blame the Now… no matter how much I know from it.
What is everyone doing tonight? Want to record conversations, like I said to someone working at a wine bar tonight… Conversations are not just interesting, or even amusing, just whole and bright… like momentary theatres that teach, and if not teach then just show… provide unexpected music. I don’t know. Freely writing, finally. And maybe it’s from this current course and kerfuffle .
Not collected where I am. Need move. Need travel.. bring stories to babies when returned. Restroom.. restrooms, in hotels, in other countries, and the bed in which I sleep, what I write after. What’s there… what will I say to self?
Can’t think of a thing to write.
Went to lunch meeting, meeting at 3:30 cancelled. Or whenever it was for.
Meeting at five which I’m looking forward to, and I’m getting tired of researching. It’s all perspective. How I see what I see. Making self write tonight, for the 100k book.
Anxiety present and instrumental today, but I’m keeping it as offshore as I can. Keep writing, reacting to what’s around me. One of the trainers leaving early and I’m thinking I should as well. Not convinced. Wait… go to Balletto, stop in and say hi. No, not in the mood for that either…. My Now consists of indecision. Back to research… Just enjoy looking at businesses in your vertical.. take some notes, but not too many.
Going to call one more business, then leave the office. A bit under 2 hours till meeting. Then what after that…. Write. Didn’t meet aims of not lunching out (though I can expense it, so not a total fall) and fasting. Excessively analytical today, must be because of other movements in story.
Office getting quiet. Got coffee in back, not sure why. Now it just sits on my desk, which isn’t really my desk anymore. Trying to be in work rile, mode, whatever. Not working. I could just leave. I am salary now. So why don’t I then.
Run tomorrow. Out in Bodega Bay. Look for route. Actually, do that now…
Can’t find any paths out there, but I didn’t look that hard. Might take Healdsburg, or Sonoma. Park by Sister’s house, or something. Either way, I’m running. Maybe not eight miles like last Saturday, but I’m getting out. Tasting at DuMol re-scheduled for 3pm. Can’t forget that.
Day in a smooth altitude and speed.
About to head out. To visit a Santa Rosa Architect, or two. And do some writing.
Being an AE. How to, like I’ve thought of, but how everything is AE. Everyone’s an AE to an extent. Or just principally.
Keep moving. Keep talking. Visibility, yes, but with words… conversation.
Would love a glass of something white, as it’s warm outside, and I’m in an eased and freed lead. Envelops for those letters I had to write, notes on what to do tomorrow. Call prospects, more canvassing from desk, the nook, but not before a run. And yes, I’ll be running after the leads group. Have to find my shoes. Where the hell did I put them? Couldn’t find them this morning.