I'm a highly-committed snowboarder who just loves the summer! 

Sitting here in our Boston office this AM, with the temps to reach 90 and real-feel of 100, I'm loving the idea of the drive back to the NH beach tonight in the red summer car.  A month from now...BANG!...we're all accelerating from August's flip flops to real shoes, sports jackets, starched shirts and whatever cruising speed fits your work habits.

So, as uber-committed as I am to my work at Tufts at The Derby Entrepreneurship Center, to our management consulting in the strategy and sciences of sales and marketing and to my work as a venture guy, I'm breaking with my "normal" push for Olympic-level performance and this morning recommending  to slow down the pace for August...just a bit...because when it's over, it's over.

I love what I do and am totally committed to our customers and my students, but I also personally know what burnout is having brought myself there a couple of times years ago.  What is it?  It's that feeling of complete depletion, and that there's nothing more in the tank to give.  As a result, there's an immediate lack of personal and work-related impact...which, of course...leads to less and less impact and more and more burnout.   

Here at the very beginning of the entire month of the next 30 days I'm strongly recommending that you take advantage of The Dog Days.

Travel -Don't Travel, but Do Change Your Location

I'm not a big travel guy for a couple of reasons, but I do break the weekly routines between trips to Boston, to the NH beach and the Vermont woods. I love driving and have a red summer car that breaks the norm, and as a result, I find the simple act of changing location...even for a day or two...is a refreshing time out. 

Clinical studies show that time spent in nature has a very positive effect on your attention span and well-being, so the key takeaway here is to get outside as much as possible this month.  Yea, I know it's hot, but just remember that six months from now, we're all going to be complaining about the wicked cold of January.

Read Like Crazy

I'm at the NH beach this weekend, and the beach bag is already packed with McKinsey articles, a trashy book, and the latest HBR that arrived last week.. But then I love to read.  If that's not your thing, maybe podcasts or audio books...just anything to get your mind absorbed into a different thought process outside your nomral 10+ hour work norm.

Take "You" Time

Walk in the woods.  Take a walk on the beach at sunrise.  Explore a new physical thing. 

I've Iived in my tiny Vermont town (pop. 769) for decades and have 7 generations of background in the same river valley.  Last weekend found me begining a search for fossils in the now water-ravaged river that rose 10' in the most recent storms.  I knew before I went out to explore based on the research that I had done that Vermont is the least-likely state in the U.S. to have fossils given its geological history.  As I expected, the  quest was totally unproductive regarding anything to do with fossils, but the walking through the now-trickling river bed and the two hours of sifting through buckets of sand was a stimulating time out.

Just a frew ideas to think about as you contemplate this weekend and the official beginning of The Dog Days.

Gotta get ready for my 9:00 AM sales call.   Have a great day selling today!

Executing on your Sales Plan in 2024!

For a few ideas on your sales plan for the second half of the year and improving the productivity of your own team, you can click here for our new  "Writing the Winning Sales Plan in 2024", for a few ideas on structure, sales models, process funnels and a number of productivity tools and how to recruit and hire the best. 

Or, just give me a call, and we can kick around a few ideas, talk about game plans and specific training..

www.derbymanagement.com  
Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts.