Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Kee-yaw, but I scared the heck out of one of the owners of my company this morning!  I had ridden my bike to work and because it was raining out, I decided to bring my bike inside to store in my cubicle before heading over to the gym next door to shower.  I didn’t expect to bump into anyone in MY cube so early in the morning, but I was surprised myself when I nudged someone just as I  pushed the bike past the cube wall.  I heard Cathy let out a startled yelp just before I saw her surprised expression.  She was standing there with a feathered Mardi Gras mask in her hand, looking sort of sheepish.  Turns out I busted her hanging Mardi Gras decorations in my cube! 

It took me a minute to sort this out in my head, but I quickly remembered that Cathy is aware of a trip I’m planning to go on if I hit my personal sales goals for this quarter, and she wanted to help provide incentive!  My friend, Shellie, and I are going to take a long-talked about trip to New Orleans during the Jazz Heritage Festival in May of this year.   Our sales trainer has been encouraging us sales people to set personal goals above and beyond our quota numbers, and to make it more real and more fun by coming up with a reward for accomplishing those goals.  Makes sense to me! 

He has also encouraged us to tell other people and even include them somehow if we think it will make us work harder.  I figured he was on to something, so I told Shellie that I was ready to take that trip if I hit my personal goal of hitting 130% of my quarterly quota.  Well, she was all for it and immediately started sending me a steady stream of links of places we could stay and things we could do.  The pressure was on to hit that goal, because I couldn’t risk letting Shellie down!

I don’t know how, but that extra pressure HAD to have some influence over my focus or something, because I’m at 110% of my quarterly  PERSONAL goal right now, and it’s only February 1st!  We are definitely going – and boy are we excited!  Just one more sale before the end of March will do it.  I think I need to set some supplementary goals to keep this drive going!  I want to visit my family in the heart of Cajun Country, too, so I will need to earn a little more for that part of the trip.

I’ve wanted to go to the Jazz Heritage Festival since my early 20’s.  This is going to be a dream come true, and I can’t wait to “pass a good time, cher!”