Thanksgiving with my family.

Thanksgiving in Fruita, CO

2012

I am thankful for my degree.

I am very thankful for everyone in my life especially my wife Suzy who has made going back to school possible. I would like to thank Pfizer, Susan Leibsly and Chris Stoll for believing in me. I would like to thank Kayla, Chloe and Mary for letting their dad do his homework and for being brave when I'm gone. I must thank Tyler who taught me tough love and Emma who is Love. I would like to thank my parents Jeff and Nancy for always letting me do anything I was willing to get good at and for coming to all my baseball games (I would bet I played in more baseball games than anyone alive up to 18 years old) really. Always thankful for Carol, Karen and J. Best ever.

I finished the last class of my MBA program two weeks ago and thought I would take a little break from the key board before resuming my full-time status as blog master of the AndKeith.com internet empire. I am thankful to be back.

I would like to thank my mentor and friend Jim Miller. He has taught me so much by example I could never put it all into words. Jim is a success at life. At Pfizer a complete success. Hall of Fame representative, that's six of our highest awards. In life he is an inspiration. He and his wife just had their forth child who in himself is a miracle. Jim had brain cancer and this child was not supposed to be able to happen. He is an inspiration because he is always learning. He is always excited about things. He always is on the cutting edge of things and in the biopharmacuetical medical industry that is not always easy.

During the second to last week of class we had an IDP (Individual Development Plan) meeting that was run completely by the team. Everyone had relatively free range on whatever personal development topic to present and we each had 30  minutes to enlighten our fellow teammates.

The topics on the agenda where; The Power of Habit, Happiness, The Value of Pharmaceuticals, The Fred Factor, The Rhetorical Triangle, Craig (Planning), Lucy (book) and The Power of Habit (Jim and Melinda did separate presentations on the same book). We had a fire drill about a half hour into the first presentation and had to take nine fights of stairs (Chris did it four weeks after breaking a collar bone and pelvis in a bike accident). Chris opened with his two cents on EI (Emotional Intelligence). Did you know that 80% of high achieving sales representatives are rated high in EI?

I presented last and my hook was that I was going to turn this meeting into a blog and that I didn't use a PowerPoint and used my blogs instead. Going last had me a little fried by the time I went so it was hard for me to focus and stay on message but felt there was a good response to the merits of Socrates' power of persuasion by addressing the Logos, Pathos and Ethos (I blogged about it @ sellingstrong.com if you want to look it up).

This first very wordy post is dedicated to Jim Miller. You are a good friend.

All this was off the top of my head so please excuse the random inaccuracies. I will consult my notes for the meeting summary for the next post and then do individual posts of what I have learned from each member of the bestsalesteamever.com.

My daughter was whining about her report for school and was a little stressed because it was due in two weeks. I said its OK but act like it is due tomorrow and try and do as much of it as you can right now. About an hour later she came with several pages and ideas and she said she still had a lot to do but she felt a lot better about it. I told her she had completed the hardest part of all. She looked back and said, "Starting!" Exactly!

So, I have started. welcome to the BEST SALES TEAM EVER .BLOGSPOT.COM.