The Resilient Entrepreneur, Edition #94
Hi there
I hope you had a great week!
Here are the topics in today's edition:
- Getting Drunk at a Business Event? That’s a Bad Idea
- Feeling Uninspired? Adults and Kids, Put Your Mobile Phones Away
Please reach out with comments, questions, or suggestions for articles!
Talk soon,
Tom
LEADERSHIP FOR RESILIENT ENTREPRENEURS
Getting Drunk at a Business Event? That’s a Bad Idea
I recently heard a guy talking too loudly about his air miles and about getting drunk at a business event. I bet he wasn’t an entrepreneur.
Doing sales is an integral part of entrepreneurship. When you start a business, there is nobody else besides the founders, so the founders will have to do all the sales efforts to get the business off the ground.
Even when the business has started to grow, you cannot stop doing sales as an entrepreneur. As the Founder & CEO of Yonder, a B2B SaaS company, I continue to engage in sales, including regular trade show attendance.
Yet, there is a subtle difference between an entrepreneur selling and an employed sales representative. Of course, this is a general statement, but the example below might illustrate my point.
The Setting
A few weeks ago, I had to attend a trade show during the school holidays. My kids weren’t amused that I’d be travelling during the school holidays, but it allowed me to show my daughter what’s happening at a trade show. For her, it was a week full of learning — hard factors, but also soft factors.
And it’s the soft factors that this article is about.
On the last day of the trade show, the morning started slowly. It was obvious from the number of people in the hall that there must have been an event going on last night.
And suddenly, a guy turns up at the booth right next to ours, talking much louder than he should. He talked about his frequent flyer statuses and about getting absolutely shit-faced last night in a downtown bar.
This guy must be an employed sales representative and not an entrepreneur, I told my daughter. How come I knew?
The Air Miles Brag
Travelling is a necessity when you are in a sales role. If your company serves an international or even global market, you’ll spend lots of time on planes. And with this come lots of air miles and eventually, a frequent flyer status.
Yes, I also was a frequent flyer for many years. But I never talked about my frequent flyer status, and today, I am convinced that the best frequent flyer status is not to have one at all. Because that means you don’t have to travel all the time.
But this guy at the trade show? He bragged about his different Gold status frequent flyer cards, speaking about it way too loudly. I bet he didn’t pay for any of those flights with his own money.
As an entrepreneur, I always compare the costs of travelling to the potential benefits. Travel expenses make up a large share of our sales and marketing budget, so we are diligent about them. The last things we care about are the air miles and the frequent flyer status.
The Drinking Brag
While listening to that dude and his air miles stories, I told my daughter, “Just wait a moment, and he will start talking about his drinking escapades.”
It didn’t take more than three minutes before he started talking about how many bottles of whiskey he drank single-handedly last night. And how much pain it was to get up this morning, and how glad he was that he could fly business class on his way home and then rest for the weekend before going back to work.
I’m certainly not an opponent of concluding important deals in the bar. Now and then, it wouldn’t have been a good idea to drive after such a meeting, and that’s OK. But I never got shit-faced at a business event. That’s because I’m an entrepreneur, and not an employed sales representative.
At my age, recovering from a wild night takes more than one night of sound sleep, and I don’t have that time as an entrepreneur. Travelling is strenuous enough, and the daily business doesn’t stop because you’re travelling. When I get home, I want to spend time with my family and catch up on any leftovers of the week, but certainly not waste my time with headaches and sobering up.
The other thing that’s problematic when you drink excessively: You’re an easy target. That might be semi-problematic if you’re an employed sales representative, but it might be hugely problematic if you’re an entrepreneur. Drunk people are easy targets, and there are plenty of people who pursue their interests at any cost — competitors, industrial spies, or cyber criminals. Do you really want to invite such people to gather crucial information about your business just because you don’t know when to put the bottle down?
Conclusion
Yes, this is a placative essay. Not every entrepreneur exemplifies self-management, and not every employed sales representative talks too loudly and drinks irresponsibly.
No matter which side you stand on, always keep the consequences of your actions in mind.
INSPIRATION FOR RESILIENT ENTREPRENEURS
Feeling Uninspired? Adults and Kids, Put Your Mobile Phones Away
You should strive to see the bigger picture, not the smaller picture. Quite literally, this is an urgent call to put your mobile phone away.
Modern life is based on ubiquitous connectivity and omnipresent mobile phones. Listening to music, communicating with colleagues, reading the newspaper, and even the daily wake-up call are assisted by our mobile phones.
Losing one’s mobile phone is worse these days than losing one’s wallet. That is because we carry our mobile phone closer than our wallet. Whilst we only carry our wallets when we leave the house, most people carry their mobile phone all the time nowadays.
What consequences does this have? Let’s look at a real-life example from my family.
The Kids
My kids have their own mobile phones, whereas those devices are under the tight supervision of Apple Family Control. Downtime, app time restrictions, and a website filter should prevent them from being glued to the screen.
So far, so good.
Does this system, designed by Apple, work to keep the kids off their phones? Not at all. Kids find workarounds all the time, and if they don’t find workarounds, they waste their time with unrestricted apps, such as the settings or the clock.
Because big tech is unable (or unwilling) to keep kids off the mobile phone screens, my wife and I decided to go back to the old ways. Now the kids have to leave their mobile phones in my wife’s room, asking for their devices if they want to use them.
Screen time fell dramatically.
But with the fall in screen time came a dramatic rise in creativity. The kids started crafting, painting, and building again. Just because we put in a physical hurdle to gain access to their mobile phones.
The Adults
Baffled by the quick change in behavior of my kids, I questioned my own behavior, too. I reminded myself how many times I have checked my mobile phone during an online meeting. How close my wife and I keep our phones when we have a conversation — because hey, maybe we need to coordinate schedules. I could recite countless other examples.
Therefore, I decided to adopt a similar practice to what we enforced on the kids: I don’t keep my mobile phone within reach on my desk during work, and I don’t take my mobile phone to our living room when my wife and I have a conversation.
This simple trick makes it impossible to check the phone all the time. This behavior frees up mental capacity, unlocks creativity, and provides clarity of thought.
All of that is needed in the hectic daily life, juggling family and work.
Conclusion
Mobile phones aren’t inherently bad things, but they are designed to catch your attention. Furthermore, they are reducing the size of the world to a few inches.
In our complex world, you should strive to see the bigger picture, not the smaller picture. Quite literally, this is an urgent call to put away your mobile phone.
About Me
Growing a company in uncertain times is like running a marathon — it demands grit, strategy, and resilience.
As a tech entrepreneur, active reserve officer, and father of three, I share practical insights and write about entrepreneurship, leadership, and crisis management — no AI bullshit, no promos, just my thoughts in plain text.
When I’m not solving problems, I recharge and find inspiration in the breathtaking mountains around Zermatt.
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