The Business of Love

A speaking event in Austin reminds me of the utter necessity for my professional message

Last week I presented a 90-minute session at The Running Event, a gathering of international running retailers held annually in Austin, Texas. I’ve spoken at this event before—six previous times, in fact, which represents only a fraction of the two decades I’ve been in this industry doing one thing or another. Twenty years! Holy wow. Where has all the time gone?

During a session I led at The Running Event years ago

TRE is like a wedding. Albeit, one you want to attend. You get to see all these people you rarely see otherwise. And because everyone is in the same place for a relatively short amount of time, your mini reunions with friends and colleagues, though poignant, are brief at best. Five, maybe ten uninterrupted minutes between various meetings and line showings is pretty much the norm at the show. Just a snap of the fingers to catch up on everything, and it’s never enough time.

I generally wander the halls of the three day show looking for familiar faces. When I find one, I try my best to be fully present. To really make our minutes count. I try to bypass the small talk and all the industry bullshit, and go straight into trying to (re)connect. Because this moment matters. And who knows what tomorrow will bring. It’s definitely going to be a while, years perhaps, before we have a chance to do it again. I try my best to make the most.

I used to show up to the show in full-blown hustle mode. I’d lug along a mountain of fancifully printed pass-along cards and hold myself accountable to daily networking quotas. Talk to ten new people each day was a typical standard against which I’d often define my day’s success. And though I generally exceeded this goal, such efforts to muster up new clients always stressed me out. I said too much of this, I forgot to say that. I didn’t get their contact and neglected to hand them my info. I devalued my services, hurried our conversation, and maybe even forgot their name as we parted ways. “Shit,” I’d say back at my hotel room. “I’m never going to create any momentum if I keep acting all awkward like this.” But I’d do it all over again the next year.

At each annual conference I’d pitch my growing enterprise—my one-person training and education powerhouse—and year after year my efforts at TRE amounted to zilch. There’s surely value in being a consistent presence among a corralling of my ideal audience, but never could I directly connect any subsequent work contracts to my presence at the event.

Group activity during my TRE presentation this year

A mentor once told me this about my marketing efforts: No matter how innovative they are, or how enthusiastic I might be to deliver them, I should never expect immediate results. He assured me that earning a worthwhile customer requires a long-game mindset.

“Don’t expect anyone to remember you,” he said, “until you’ve somehow crossed their paths seven times.” Seven times? That’s a lot. Did he mean an actual seven times, or was this just a metaphor for being relentless? He also told me that I should dedicate 90% of my intention to building and maintaining relationships. “Ninety percent shit-shooting, ten percent business-doing,” was one of his many long-standing bits of advice. And after losing my father unexpectedly, and now finding myself as a part time caretaker for my declining mom, his words mean more than ever.

If there is any truth to these seven times, then after this year’s Running Event my business should suddenly blow up, right? I damn sure hope this is the case because with all the time I’ve dedicated this year to ongoing and new family affairs, my operation is holding on by a string. All the cold calls and advertising I usually do fell by the wayside, the result of which has been a massive decrease in my number of bookings. I did a few workshops and sessions that kept my bills paid, but the crickets have been loud in 2024. My efforts around my work are commensurate with outcomes.

Fact is, I’m feeling sorry for myself. Feeling gassed out. This is like just a momentary blip, but it’s got me all unraveled. I’ve managed such temporary predicaments before, but this one feels bigger. After going gangbusters for a few years, this situation feels like a sudden and punishing hard stop. Like something has changed. Like I’ve lost relevance. Like I’ve aged out and am becoming one of those people who’ll constantly refer to the way things were. I feel like I’m losing my footing. Like this is the beginning of an end. And, to some degree, like I’ve failed. Like I should have done something sooner. There are moments during which I am really, really hard on myself.

Even after so many years of scraping together a fantastic professional network, when things get tough I lose sight of my value. The existential discomfort this causes is real. Dreadful, at times. This year, however, I met this bleak chasm with a healthy dose of self-examination. By doing so, my perspective of an otherwise derailed professional life shifted. I now see more clearly the value of my life hitting a wall.

My unexpected absence of business has forced me to look closely at things. Specifically at my job—the thing that’s been giving giving giving while I’ve been doing the same. This dark spot has asked me to look closer at my life to better see if this is the sort of abundance I (still) truly want. And you know what—I think it is. But there’s a new twist.

I recently came across some notes I jotted down earlier this year. I wrote, “My job is to be a beneficial presence in the lives of the people around me.” And though this doesn’t clearly define what my next iteration will look like, it definitely underlines what’s at the root of things.

If I’m not somehow giving, through speaking or training or writing or storytelling or mentoring or coaching or creating, I am a mere fraction of myself. This giving of myself lands me in what Buddhists call “the middle way”—which is to say, the version of me without penduluming extremes. It’s the one that requires the least amount unnecessary energy. It’s the me that both fills and is fulfilled.

These days I eschew the hustle at The Running Event and show up instead with two main intentions: 1) Deliver my presentation in a way that validates my invite, and 2) Spend each day seeking out new and old friends to catch up on things. No fancy handouts, no pitches, no coupons or deals for the coming year. I just want to shoot the shit. If we talk about business, great. If we don’t, that’s great, too. In fact, it might even be better. Because tomorrow is uncertain—and I refuse to let my last day alive be one in which I’m stressed about stupid work stuff.

Credentials

With this new mindset, attending this year felt different. Not because the show’s format has changed, or because the industry’s landscape is in flux, or even because my delivery and style and overall ability as a speaker has evolved and matured. All these things are true, but this year felt different because life has reminded me what’s more important, and I have listened. The only thing that really matters out here—in my professional or personal life—is relationships. That’s it. The rest is just details.

Many of the businessy things I raved about in the past are now framed by a common, unabashed theme—love. No matter what topic I’ve been hired to speak on—customer service or leadership or salespersonship or inventory management or community outreach or whatever—love leads the way. Today we’re going to talk about selling more stuff…but first let’s talk about love. Today we’ve come together to strategize higher conversion rates…but first we'll talk about love. This is how I roll now.

To keep love from being ethereal, or from feeling like it’s some kind of trendy tagline, I borrow and paraphrase the author bell hook’s definition of it as I introduce my session: To love is to actively extend yourself for the purpose of nourishing your or someone else’s growth. When I say this to my audience, I always repeat myself. Because I believe we need to hear this sort of thing many more times before it actually sinks in (perhaps seven times!).

Last week, when I mentioned to the Austin crowd that my session titled, “How to Sell More Than Just Running Shoes,” was actually a session about love, a few people packed ups their stuff and walked out of the big conference room. Not everyone is ready to talk about love, and especially in a setting where broaching such a subject is uncommon and unexpected. I support whatever they needed to do to be comfortable—but it doesn’t alter my motivation to keep charging forward with what I want to highlight.

Instead, I trust that our next time together, or perhaps the time after that, or the time after that, they’ll be ready to dive into how love fits into their professional realm. Because it damn sure does. In fact, how they approach, and embrace, and consider how to give and receive love will undoubtedly be a hefty determinant for whether or not they’ll still be around in the future.

A good business takes time to strategize how they plan to deliver and accept love. It’s simple yin/yang. A beautiful cycle of ongoing give and take.

For as long this industry will have me, I aim to use it as a vehicle to activate love. I’ll spotlight this love with a businessy lens, but make no mistake, my content’s reach transcends their lives as businesspeople. Frankly, if this wasn’t true, I’d have a different job.

Entrepreneurs who reflect on love, connection, tenderness, and togetherness, (among other things, of course) will more quickly find their authentic professional footing. One that naturally draws their ideal sort of customer through the front door. To love, in my opinion, is to live more fully for myself and for others. And if I want to do one thing before it’s all over, it’s that.

Caught in a teaching moment