1,700 Sales People in Las Vegas

I was in Las Vegas this week for our annual sales kickoff. Basically the company flew 1,700 of our sales people from around the world to Vegas, put us up in the Wynn, and showed us one heck of a good time. I think I slept 10 hours last night after getting back, I never sleep 10 hours. My entire team was allowed to go and they had a blast. They got some good recognition and I hope they are inspired this year.

I arrived a day early to hang out with the other Sales Engineer managers and do some bonding. We went go kart racing and it was a blast. In case you were thinking it was all fun and games there was a lot of work being done. Wednesday was a half day, we met as a group from 1-6PM. Thursday was a full day, 8AM - 6PM, and Friday was another half day. You lock sales people in a room for that long there is bound to be an explosion of fun at some point in the night. Wednesday happened to be my big night, not all drinking, but just hanging out with fiends and being entertained by obsessive gambling (I don't gamble). I finally turned in at 5:30AM, which made getting up at 7:30 really fun.

The highlight of the week was having Tony Robbins speak to us for 4 hours. 99% of the sales people we expecting this to be some cheesy motivational talk. When he was done those 99% stood completely corrected. Tony Robbins is 6'5" of genuine human being. I know it's a bit long but I think his TED talk below really sums up his message. Hang with the whole thing if you can.