“The days are long but the years are short.” – Unknown

How true! 11 months down, 1 remaining in 2022.

Yikes!

I was in the Atlanta metro this past June visiting team members.

I hadn’t met some of the newer members plus I needed to do some in-person training, so I flew out Thursday and returned Friday.

The team and I shared a few meals, huddled in a hotel conference room, and did professional training to grow their team.

There’s no substitute for face-to-face in-person time and Zoom meetings can get old quickly and attention spans wither.

Pictured here from left to right: Frankie Teel, Shamar Slappy, Addie Kate Pruett, Casey Cantrell, and Rachel Woodyard.

I’m excited and proud of the Southeast Team!

PS: Happy birthday Frankie!

Happy Sunday everyone!

And the flights and travel continue!

As I mentioned in previous blog posts, I visited Seattle and Portland over Memorial Day weekend with my family.

2 days later I flew with a colleague to Atlanta to visit the Southern Region Team and meet reps who I hadn’t met in person yet.

2 days later I then flew with a colleague BACK to Atlanta for a training session in North Carolina.

My flight was originally supposed to leave around 10:30 am Sunday morning, June 5th. The airline canceled it and rebooked me but the layover via Minnesota would have put me into Atlanta late.

So I took the 5:30 AM flight direct to Atlanta, grabbed my luggage and rental car and grabbed a hotel for a few hours, napped, and picked up my colleague coming from Michigan and we drove 140 miles north to our destination.

Nisah Tahara, my head of Training, Learning, and Development, and I did a training session with a client over 2 days. I had never met her before but we had spoken countless times via phone and Zoom, and wonderful to meet her.

We drove back to the airport, dropped off the rental car, and parted ways. I enjoyed my time with her as well as the client doing live training. First time since the pandemic. Other sessions had been strictly remote.

3 trips down 1 more to go. I head to Indianapolis, IN tomorrow morning!

I’m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000.

(Pictured is Nisah and I at breakfast!)

So to get straight to the point: I lost the election handily. I lost approximately 70% to 30%.

It was a fair race and as far as I know, my opponent kept it clean and professional and he ran a good race.

In fact, my neighbor brought me 3 pieces of direct mail she received from him in the last month of the campaign.

I’m glad I ran, it was a good experience, and I met some wonderful people.

With that being said, I’m retiring from politics with a perfect record of 0-1.

I knocked on about 30-40 doors while campaigning and realized while doing it, I didn’t like it and wasn’t energized or passionate about it. Ironically, I’m a high extrovert who really enjoys meeting new folks. Not in politics.

So I lost the sales contest but kept my values and character intact.

You can’t complain but sit on the sidelines. Politics is not for the faint of heart.

I’m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000. Happy Thanksgiving!

PS: Photo by Depositphotos (<a href=”https://depositphotos.com/category/holidays-events.html”>Neon Concept of winner and loser Vector Illustration. Glowing neon sign – depositphotos.com</a>)

Happy Friday everyone!

A few weeks ago, my firm finally joined the correct century and moved from IMAP email to Google Workspace.

Christy Rogers of Training Umbrella did some remote training with my team and was excellent! Continual education and professional learning are musts in this current remote age of working. I highly recommend her training and company.

(Not all of the staff are pictured here.)

When your team is working remotely, they may feel isolated and disengaged!

Have some friendly lunch and learn sessions and let them expense their meals to the company.

If you don’t have any topics to come up with, have your staff go around, share interesting facts and stories about themselves that others may not know about, and it’s a wonderful way to teambuild.

I’m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000.