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Five Reasons Why You’re Not an Elite Road Warrior Yet But How to Become One

Nothing like offending the reader right out of the gate by telling you You’re NOT an elite road warrior yet.

It reminds me of my favorite highly educational and cerebral movie (ha ha), Dumb and Dumber where Jim Carrey is talking to the love of his life and asking her what were his chances with her.

Mary Swanson : I’d say more like one out of a million.

Lloyd Christmas : [long pause while he processes what he’s heard] So you’re telling me there’s a chance.

So, I’m definitely telling you there’s a chance and I want you to have the optimism and commitment of Lloyd Christmas in Dumb and Dumber.

I love the word ELITE.

You hear it in the sports world.

You hear it in the business world.

But until now, we’ve not heard it associated in business travel and with the Road Warrior.

My Definition of an Elite Road Warrior

Does what it takes, no matter what, to be at your best in your work / health / home life while on business travel.

So, with that lofty aspiration, there are …

Top Five Reasons Why You’re NOT an Elite Road Warrior Yet…

(with the emphasis on the word YET)

1. We hate to miss out on anything

It’s easy on the road to get pulled in / sucked in / pressured in / easily persuaded into about everything

  • Food – appetizers / fattening food / desserts
  • Drinks – soda / energy drinks / alcohol
  • Events
  • After Parties

It’s FOMO – fear of missing out and that’s exactly the issue. The problem though is we simply prefer instant gratification. The benefit of the here and now and we can easily justify it.

2. We’re just too busy and too tired

As a result of hating to miss out on anything, we become incredibly busy and always on the go. When that happens, we’re just too tired.

Too busy and too tired to do the habits that will ultimately allow us to become an elite road warrior.

3. We’re too set in our ways

If you’ve been on the road for any length of time, you have YOUR WAY of doing things on the road.

We just do our deal. I call it our Road Thing. We do whatever the day on the road tells us to do.

Change is hard in general, and then when you combine the road being hard, it’s just easy to get set in your way of doing things.

But if “your ways” are not producing great results and leading you to becoming who you want to be, then it’s a problem.

4. We don’t have a plan

We may have a plan for our trip:

  • our travel schedule
  • our meetings
  • dinners or events

But we don’t have a plan for the habits that are going to move the needle on moving from the Exhausted Road Warrior or the Existing Road Warrior to the Elite Road Warrior.

Our lack of plan becomes our plan and how’s THAT working out for you?

5. We didn’t know it was possible

Too often we just do our Road Thing because it’s the only thing we know.

When we’re unaware of a “better way” we just do what we’re comfortable with and used to. It’s easy and natural.

But when you hear of a better way, does that peak your interest? If so, you don’t have to be stuck just existing or exhausted on the road.

Whether you realize it or not, you have a certain energy level that you’ve developed on the road.

Is your status as good as you think it is or even hope it to be?

If you’re reading this blog, there’s a good chance you want to improve your road life.

Maybe you’re one or more of the following:

  • In the worst shape of your life right now
  • Stressed and overwhelmed
  • Always tired or even exhausted when you come back home
  • Disconnected with those back home far more than you want to be

You don’t have to stay the way you are on the road. You can change. You can stop limiting the road and what it can’t do for you and begin to leverage the road for what it can do for you.

So, How do you become an ERW (Elite Road Warrior)?

1. Committing to the three focus areas of an ERW:

Let’s circle back to my Definition of an Elite Road Warrior: Does what it takes, no matter what, to be at their best in their work / health / home life while on business travel.

Too many business travelers are average at best in just one or two of those areas. It may be Work and that’s it. Or Work and kinda your health or work and your home life is okay but you’re not connected at a deep level if you even know what is possible.

I came to a point where I just “had enough.”

  • Tired of how I look in the hotel mirror
  • Tired of not performing at a level I knew I could do on the road
  • Tired of no energy
  • Tired of feeling distant from my family

I needed to change and the commitment was to the three focus areas of an Elite Road Warrior:

  • Work
  • Health
  • Home Life

2. Developing the 6 Energy Habits 

This is how you become an ERW – by integrating the six energy habits into your Road Life.

Here are the six. Three are Physical Energy Habits and Three are Mental Energy Habits:

The Physical Energy Habits:

1.Move

2. Fuel

3. Rest

The Mental Energy Habits:

4. Perform

5. Develop

6. Connect

The way they integrate with the Three Focus Areas:
Work – Perform / Develop
Health – Move / Fuel / Rest
Home Life – Connect

And these 6 Energy Habits are the basis for my upcoming book called Elite Road Warrior – Transform Your Work, Health, and Home Life on Business Travel.

You may feel like you’re close or possibly a LONG way away right now from being an ERW.

Either way, my book, podcast, and this blog are all designed to move you to implement 6 Energy Habits within the three key focus areas of Work / Health / Home Life.

We can do this together.

The Secret Shame of High Performing Road Warriors

Let’s focus on the 3rd and last of the Physical Energy Habits: REST.

The Secret Shame of High Performing Road Warriors

I recently read a story regarding an eighty-four-day mission aboard the Skylab space station in the mid 1970s. About half-way through the mission, Colonel William Pogue requested a day of rest from mission control for his overworked and exhausted space crew.
Now, this seems like a no-brainer request and one that should’ve been done may days earlier.
What happened? NASA refused his request. They told them NO!
Now, I’m sure it was one heck of a view, but when you’re exhausted and want – need to rest, that’s the only thing that matters. No shock but the crew went on strike in space, a first of its kind. Disobeying orders, the crew took a space sabbath.
In response, ground control was forced to change their policy. High-Performing road warriors can produce, there is no doubt about it. The amount of productivity and results that come out of a high performer is impressive. Crank it out and getter done.
Most road warriors simply don’t see the toll that not resting is doing to them physically, mentally, and emotionally over the long haul on the road. Or at least not yet.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 40 percent of all American adults are sleep-deprived, clocking significantly less than the recommended minimum seven hours of sleep per night.
According to Terry Cralle and Dr. David Brown, over 70% don’t get a full night of rest to perform at a high level.
My assumption, since this used to be me, is many high performers sleep far less than seven hours of “quality sleep” on a consistent basis and simply don’t stop to rest. It’s a necessary evil.
The reality is, many high-performing road warriors’ secret shame is… They don’t know how to rest.
This is my confession. I’m Bryan Paul Buckley. I’m a high-performing road warrior, and I don’t know how to rest.
It’s also the confession of many others. Maybe even you right now.
We’re in this together if we’re honest (and just too tired to talk about it). We’re good at pretending that everything is good. And who will question us with the results we’re putting up?!
I feel like a high-performance car that continues to put in cheap gas, avoids maintenance, and wants a repair as quick and as cheap as possible. Just get me back on the road, man!
Can you relate?
The reality is, many of us are interested in how to work better but few of us know how to rest better.
The focus here is on REST or the lack thereof.
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, in his book appropriately titled Rest, states,
We view rest as a physical necessity or inconvenience. We see work and rest as binaries. When we think of rest as work’s opposite, we take it less seriously and even avoid it. 
Rest is not work’s adversary; rest is work’s partner.
They complement and complete each other. You cannot work well if you don’t rest well. We underestimate how much good serious rest can do for us. And we also underestimate just how much we can do if we take rest seriously.
Go, Alex – you could not be more spot on for the Road Warrior.
As a result, here are four inner thoughts that accompany the secret shame of high-performing road warriors:

  1. We Minimize Rest

High-performing road warriors are highly skilled at minimizing anything that slows them down. We say the following comments:
  • Rest is a waste of time.
  • I don’t really need as much rest as everyone else.
  • I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
Sadly, when we minimize rest, it often results in mentally belittling others who do rest. We judge and when we do, we feel better about ourselves as a result. Been there, done that?
I know there are more people out there doing this than just me. Our time is valuable on the road and our schedules are packed, so it’s easy to minimize our rest. But is it the best for us?

  2. We Avoid Rest at All Costs

High-performing road warriors have a unique gift of always being busy. Every moment is calculated and used to produce results, not to slow down.
As a result, we’re always on the move. We act like we’re allergic to rest. Sadly, we fill our schedule so rest doesn’t even have a chance. Now, I’ve mastered this one. I can fill my time to push rest out of even the realm of possibility.
Who can question me with my results? Our time is valuable on the road and our schedules are packed, so it’s easy to minimize our rest.
But, is it the best for us?
I’ve personally paid the price for it by physically crashing and losing more time with the crash than if I had just rested in the first place.

  3. We Justify Rest as Optional

I can tell myself half-truths all day long about why rest is optional for me.
Here are some of my go-to road statements:
  • I have too much to do to rest (which ironically is my choice and I could choose to slow down and the world would not end).
  • It’s my current season of life on the road but it won’t always be this way (but I’ve made it my way of life, not a season of life).
  • I’m fine with what little rest I get right now (yeah, because I don’t know what being fully rested actually feels like).
The irony is no one seeing our “on stage” sees the mind games we play “backstage or off stage,” nor would they really care.  They may even like us better if we were rested and not so driven all the time. Imagine that.
I love how Michael Hyatt puts it, “The more tired I am, the dumber I get”
And many times I get more dumb as the business trip goes on, and on, and on.

  4. We Fear Rest

The truth is, many high-performing road warriors are afraid of slowing down.
Whoa. Now you just got personal. Here’s some truth syrum on my end…
I’ve come to the point of realizing just how much of my identity has been deeply found in my ability to produce results on the road.
I can’t produce results if I’m resting, right?
But that flawed and even arrogant thinking couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth is, I can rest; I’ve just not wanted to slow down.
I asked at a heart level, why am I not stopping long enough to truly rest? I was first asked of a good friend of mine, Val Brown, then worked through this with a counselor, Dr. Nick Howard.
This must be answered to become an elite road warrior and man did I wrestle with this question:
Why am I not stopping long enough to truly rest?
The work will ALWAYS BE THERE. Just because I finish THAT report, THAT presentation, THAT email, it’s not like it stops. It JUST…KEEPS… COMING.
I took this question of “why am I not stopping long enough to truly rest?” very seriously and this is what I found out…
I was afraid of what I would find if I slowed down. Here is my truth of why I feared rest:
  • Would I be viewed as average or like “Everyone else”?
  • Would I still be needed?
  • Would I be replaced?
  • Would I like what I found when I slowed down and reflected on what was truly important to me?
When we define ourselves by our work, by our dedication and willingness to go the extra mile, then it’s easy to see rest as a negation of those things. If your work is your identity, when you cease to work, you cease to exist.
This was the truth I needed to face. I had to come to grips with why I was so driven and why I feared rest. Learn from me, road warrior.
I didn’t know how to slow down, unplug, relax, and truly receive the deep benefits of rest.
It simply came down to this simple revelation for me:
I know I need to, but I don’t know how to rest. Not knowing how to truly rest is my secret shame and the shame of many high-performing road warriors I’ve met. This is solvable.
But the first step is accepting we don’t know how to rest.
The key word is HOW.
Rest is challenging enough at home with a consistent schedule, but the road is a completely different animal.
It is absolutely vital to your success in becoming an elite road warrior who is performing at the highest level in his work, health, and home life while on business travel.
I hope the rest energy habit wakes you up (literally) so you can become the elite road warrior you have inside of you.
Let’s breakdown the Energy Habit of rest that has three major aspects:
1. Sleep –  Think Better Sleep (quality) then More Sleep (quantity)
Let’s start with improving your sleep before we increase your sleep. You’ll learn strategies, tactics, evening rituals, etc. to maximize your sleep on the road.
2. Breaks – Move the Body, Rest the Mind
Most do the opposite. It’s possible to take a short, strategic break on the road that super-charges your energy
3. Downtime – Time to Be, NOT to Be On
This may seem like an extreme luxury but it’s possible and when you do MAKE time for Downtime, you will see incredible results.
I love this quote from Alan Felding  in his book, An Unhurried Life: “Good work only grows best on the soil of rest.”
So I hope you can rest this week. And learn HOW to rest.

How to Immediately Take Control of Your Home Away From Home

Did you know the average business traveler spends between 48-74 nights away from home?
For someone who doesn’t travel much, they seemed surprised, even shocked by this number.

Those that travel in this range, completely agree. And those of us who travel that amount by Memorial Day, know what it’s like to try and live in a home away from home. Most do it very poorly and just survive.

Or as I often say, “getting by, not getting better”.

But does it have to be that way? Just getting by on the road?

I remember before I started traveling for a living, how much I looked forward to staying in a hotel. The criteria and expectations were so different back in those simple, naive days.
When I travel with my family and the kids, often times it’s as simple as throw the luggage down, grab the swimsuits, and head to the pool. But now it’s a whole different ball game with business travel especially traveling the amount I’ve done year after year now.

Here’s the reality: A hotel room can make or break a trip especially that first night.

My normal routine before I became focused, okay, obsessed with maximizing my energy on the road, was one of the following after I opened my hotel room door:

1. Chuck my carry-on wherever to deal with whenever, turn on the tv, and crash by relaxing on the bed

2. Kind of unpack and leave the room immediately for bigger and better things (never found out what exactly was bigger and better other than my gut and my next big meal or drink)

But I realized these two approaches always back-fired on me.

Later in the evening when I eventually came back to my hotel room, aka “home away from home” since I had been negligent to set up this temporary home environment, I always had negative consequences:

  • My room was a blast furnace
  • My clothes were a wrinkled mess
  • I couldn’t find anything in my carry-on because it was late and dark and I was impatient and I felt unorganized and frustrated

It came down to a lack of preparation on my part to set up my home away from home to work best for me. I was viewing my hotel room as a place to CRASH not a place of ENERGY. And the irony is it would only take a simple plan and a few minutes of my time to solve this disorganization and frustration.

I wanted and needed my hotel room to create energy not consume energy for me and a few seemingly simple tweaks could actually give me a quick boost of energy. This is what I came up with and I now live by the acronym HOME. The reality is where I’m staying 1-5 nights per week (before Covid-19) is my home while I’m away from “real home.”

Before we get into “the details” on how to make the most of your hotel room we have to discuss how I make sure this HOME habit is going to happen.
The Trigger.

I had to have a trigger so I can change my old habits of chucking my carry-on wherever and crashing on the bed. The trigger is when the key opens my door. Once my key opens my hotel room after check-in, I go through a four-step process found in an acronym: HOME

How to Immediately Take Control of Your Home Away From Home on Business Travel

1. Home – Hang up and unpack

Okay, my hotel room is open and I have a choice what to do next. The easy thing is to chuck the carry-on in the corner, grab the remote, and jump on the bed. Or maybe the only thing you get out is your laptop to start cranking out some work.

I want to encourage you to do the “H – hang up and unpack. The very 1st thing I do is find the luggage holder, find the ideal spot in the room and immediately hang up my dress clothes. I always have nice clothes that need to be hung up so here’s my chance.

I then unpack my entire carry-on. Huh? Why?  It’s simple and psychological: I don’t want to feel like I’m living out of a suitcase.  And the reality is it only takes a couple of minutes. I’ve done it so many times, I can knock it out quickly.

I have my non-hanging clothes in packing cubes so they’re easy to pull out of my carry-on, open up a drawer, and either unload the contents or if the drawer is large enough, I simply set the packing cube in the drawer wide open for easy access.

Lastly, I take my toiletry bag into the bathroom and unpack it. All of it. I HATE scrounging through that small bag for what seems like hours to find “that one thing” I need.

I take a washcloth or small towel and set everything out. (I’m a little OCD in this way so you don’t have to take it as far as I do). I can literally do this H Step in under 2 minutes.

2. hOme – Optimize the space

Next, I begin to tailor the room to fit me. It is MY room until I leave. Now, I’m not moving walls or taking down pictures but I am making tweaks that make me feel more comfortable. The 1st thing I do is remove the clutter. I don’t need or even want all the magazines, advertisements, etc. laying all around the room. In one swoop, I grab everything out and put it in a drawer.  The next thing I do is adjust the furniture. I know, crazy, right? I’m not moving the bed or redecorating but often I’m making two potential moves:

The Desk – if I’m going to be spending any amount of time in a workspace, I want to tweak it to fit me and this usually means changing the location to face a window if I can move it. I also see if there’s a way I can adjust the height to make it more of a stand-up desk (a personal thing with me).
The Chair – I’m a voracious reader (Energy Habit Four – Develop) so if I can put the chair in a more optimal location, again, by a window, all the better. I start my morning with reading so I like to have the location all set and ready for me.

Optimizing the space is a “feel thing”.  If it’s a value to you, you just need to act on it. You’ll be surprised what this can do for you. If you’re not sure, just try it. A fellow business traveler on a plane told me about this idea. Now, it’s part of my routine.

How can you maximize the room layout to create energy for you? This O Step takes me only 2 or 3 minutes.

3. hoMe – Manage the room temperature and scent

Ah, the temperature. It’s never right.  I’ve lost track how many times I walked into the hotel room and began to sweat. Not cool. Literally. I sweat enough in air conditioning, I don’t need any help in a warm room!

My HOME routine means I MUST change the temperature of the room to what is comfortable to me. Not my wife or my kids, so it’s what I like and prefer.  Often, I set it for my ideal sleeping temperature which is usually around 66 degrees. I know, one cool cat.

Another tweak I do with the room temperature has more to do with the room scent. Here’s my Scent Hack: I bring cotton balls and put a few drops of essential oils to change the scent of the room.

This is great when you come back into the room and have a comforting scent that is calming and familiar. I love the scent of eucalyptus so I put some on a cotton ball, and then put it into the vent in the wall. Voila.

At night I’ll often change the essential oil to lavender to help me sleep (I also put some on my body). Don’t knock it until you try it.

Think about your ideal room temperature and scent. Chances are you’re put little to no thought into this question especially when you enter the room and part of your routine.
This takes me a “cool and stinkin” 1 minute.

4. homE – Exercise

After I complete the 1st three parts of the H.O.M.E. acronym, it’s time to move the body especially on a travel day and quite possibly a busy day depending on what time I make it to the hotel.

And I always have a plan. If I have a short amount of time, I can drop to the floor and do a few minutes of an ab workout or pushups or burpees that include pushups and work my abs.

If I’ve had little activity, I may do just 10 minutes of a High-Intensity Interval Workout (HIIT). You’d be surprised how much you can get your heart rate up and how much better you’ll feel in just 10 minutes.

Many times I want to find the hotel fitness center and just do dumbbell workouts. If I have more time, I may want to visit a local gym to workout and leverage the sauna or steam room or plunge pool. I do this by a unique pass provided by Localfit.

But you need to have a plan. Once I open that hotel room door, I need to know how much time I have, what I feel like doing, and what I’m going to do. Don’t believe the lie that you don’t have enough time for exercise.

If you’ve read my book, I say often: Something, anything, is better than nothing. This is my BIGGEST boost of energy for wherever my evening will lead me. This takes me anywhere between 5-30 minutes. And worth literally every minute.

Takeaways

  • Start with one of the four above that would make the biggest impact on your energy if you were to implement it.  For example, the 1st one for me was simply changing the room temperature. Sounds silly but I HATED coming back to a warm room after a long day and it felt like forever for it to cool down especially if I had to be out late that day.
  • Hanging up my clothes and fully unpacking was more of a mental thing at first but led to not consuming needless energy looking for things and feeling like a visitor in my own room.
  • What I enjoy the most through my stay is Optimizing the Space. Changing the room to fit my flow has made working (Perform Energy Habit) and reading/thinking (Develop Energy Habit) so much more enjoyable to me.
  • Look for something that will be a simple and impactful change and you should see immediate feedback on its effectiveness. Remember, the goal is taking ownership of your hotel room to create not consume your energy.

It only requires a short amount of time but can have quick and tangible results.
So, wherever you are on the road, do something, anything, just not nothing to master the business travel life. Leverage that road to becoming an elite road warrior today.

10 Most Often Asked Questions Asked of Me About Road Life

One of my favorite parts of being a business travel performance expert is receiving so many questions whether through surveys, assessment, research projects, emails, or just plain conversation on a flight or at a hotel bar.

Recently, I spoke at a consulting firm and was flooded with GREAT questions from high-performing road warrior consultants who wanted to not get by on the road but get better and leverage the road to do it.

As a result, I’ve chosen ten of the most often asked questions for this article.

10 Most Often Asked Questions Asked of Me About Road Life

This 1st question is by far the most asked question but it’s also the one that gets the most pushback.

1 – How do you eat healthy on the road?

I failed miserably at this for easily the first half of my road career which has been too many years.

I viewed my business trip as a vacation when I ate, not a vocation. My filter was, “oh, that looks good!” I could spend more on an appetizer or dessert or glass of wine than I would on my entire meal with my own money.

The result? Ballooning to over 40 pounds overweight due to business travel. I hated how I looked in that blasted hotel mirror and felt lousy.

Then I came to the point where my perspective on food changed. I wanted energy on the road to be my best and Food is Fuel and Fuel is Energy.

I embraced four letters – MTHC (Make the Healthiest Choice)

And part of MTHC is three parts:
1. Continually Hydrate – I have an Elite Road Warrior water bottle and drink a ton of water ALL DAY LONG
2. Clean and Green – every meal is the cleanest I can eat and I add as many greens as I can
3. Carry a Controlled Substance – I carry a snack bag with Tupperware that has healthy snacks so I’m never caught off guard and always have an energy kick available

I have choices of what I put in my mouth and need to consciously choose how I feel after whatever I’m about to eat.

I favor hotels with full kitchens, shop at Whole Foods and/or Trader Joes whenever possible, and request eating someplace “Clean and Green” when going out with others.

I recently even did hard-core Keto30 on the road which you can listen to on episode 25 of the podcast.

Key phrase: MTHC (Make the Healthiest Choice)

2 – How do you workout on the road?

Time is your biggest enemy on the road.

I believed the lie “if I can’t get in a full workout, what’s the point?” – Lies, nothing but lies!

I had to change my mindset to “Something, Anything is Better Than Nothing.”

Sometimes my 20-minute workout is better than an hour.

Sometimes, going 10 minutes hard in my hotel room with bodyweight and resistance bands is more than enough.

“But I’m too tired to workout” – lies, nothing but lies.

Movement creates energy.

How many times have you worked out in the morning after dragging yourself out of bed and by the end of the workout, you were ready to conquer your day?! That’s me – every… single… time.

I learned the Increase M4X Formula
1. Stand More – think up on your feet, not down on your butt
2. Walk More – think forward, not still
3. Run More – think cardio, get your heart rate up
4. Lift More – think strength training

How I…

  • Stand More – stand at the gate / every 30 min on a flight / in meetings whenever possible / create stand up desks at the hotel (lobby or room)
  • Walk More – park at the back of a parking lot / choose a higher floor at the hotel / take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator or walk the escalator
  • Run More – do HIIT that gets my heart rate up – jog to run / burpees / stairs quickly
  • Lift More – bodyweight / dumbbells / resistance bands

Key phrase: Something, Anything is Better Than Nothing

3 – How do you get a better night of sleep on the road?

Ah, sleep, the ultimate waste of time on the road, right? How can you get anything done if you’re in a coma?

I used to view sleep as a “necessary evil”

I had to learn to make the sleep I was getting, which was 6 hours or less, better before I started to add any more sleep because it wouldn’t be quality sleep.

1. Prioritize Bed Time
2. Create a Bed Time Ritual
3. Create an Ideal Sleep Environment

For me…

Bed Time Priority always depended on the type of my trip – was I by myself or with others? Was I doing training, speaking, and workshops, or at a conference or trade show? Once I knew, then I could realistically prioritize bedtime. That may mean leaving the event or bar earlier but nobody really cared the next morning. Regardless, getting to bed with the foresight of what time I needed to get up was a priority.

My Bed Time Ritual:

  • Drop the Lights
  • Drop the Temperature
  • Change the Room Scent
  • Comfy Clothes – under armor shorts / Hurley soft t-shirt or Dep Sleepwear
  • Read
  • Guided Meditation

Ideal Sleep Environment:

  • Cool
  • Dark and I mean dark – towel over door crack/clip to keep the curtains shut
  • Bose Sleep Buds

Key Phrase –“Improve Before Increase”

 

4 – What is your morning routine?

It has definitely evolved over time. In fact, I have an entire podcast episode on the First Hour of Your Road Day called the Energy Hour

My routine used to be checking social media, sports scores, texts, and emails while still in bed!

Once I opened up any of those, they owned my day and I rarely turned it around.

So, I needed to make sure I took care of ME first before everyone else’s agenda.

And what took care of me?

Four of the six energy habits:

1. Develop
2. Move
3. Connect
4. Fuel – continually hydrate

My exact morning routine:

  • Hydrate – my drink
  • Develop – read my Bible / read something inspirational / pray and meditate
  • Move – workout
  • Connect with the Fam – I want them to hear from me first thing in the morning and I’ll talk about how in Q5

Key Phrase – “Hit the Four Before the Door”

5 – How do you stay connected with those you love back home?

This was an area where I was what you call, a Check-In Guy for WAY too long.

I just “checked in” when it was convenient for me with no regard to what was going on back home in the life of my wife and kids. It was selfish to be honest as I look back on it.

Staying connected, especially if you’ve been traveling for any length of time, can, well, get old and stale. And for me, I wasn’t checking in enough and it really affected my family and friends back home.

Eventually, I leveraged my creative side to “spice things up” to re-connect with everyone to become a Connect-In Guy.

It’s done in three ways:

  • Connect Intentionally
  • Connect Thoughtfully
  • Connect Creatively – be memorable

How I Connect Now:

Key Phrase -“Be a Connect-In Guy or Girl, not a Check-in Guy or Girl”

The next five questions are more vulnerable.

I’ve not arrived as you’ll hear in the following answers. But I truly desire to transform my work, health, and home life on the road to master the business travel life.

 

6 – What took you the longest to change and why?

Learning how to rest and pace myself on the road. I’ve always been a hard-driver, Type-A, energy guy.

If you’ve not heard my back story, which you can listen to on the podcast in episode 002, I went so hard for so long, my body shut down to the point of complete exhaustion and I became very, very sick. It took months and months to recover and I had to learn to change my ways if I was going back to Road Life.

I had to prioritize three areas:

  • Sleep – improve then increase
  • Breaks – move the body, rest the mind
  • Downtime – time to be, not to be on

There was time for breaks and downtime – I just needed to take them and make them a priority – the payoff was beyond worth it.

I also had to learn to ask:

  • When is my energy the highest each day on the road?
  • Why is my energy low right now?
  • Is there anything I can do to change my energy level?
  • Can I match my energy with my tasks?

I had to become what I call an Energyologist (a Buckleyism) – the personal study of your own energy

Key Takeaway – You can have more energy on the road

 

7 – What do you regret the most on the road?

The answer is found in Energy Habit Six – Connect.

I regret not making my family a bigger priority especially when I first started traveling. I created some very bad habits in three areas:

  • How I left – abrupt and not sensitive especially to my kids’ feelings
  • When I was gone – When and how I contacted anyone back home revolved only around me and my schedule
  • How I returned – I was always exhausted when I came home and it was always about me. I demanded the house be in perfect condition and life revolved around me. I wanted to be left alone to “transition back into civilian life” yet I was angry when everyone went on with their lives.

My family hung in there but I had done some damage that took years to repair and I regret it. Thankfully I was able to turn it around and it’s become one of my strengths.

Learn from my costly mistakes.

Key Takeaway – Prioritize Others Just as Much

 

8 – What do I still struggle with on the road?

Drinking too often and too much.

I don’t get drunk on the road or take it too far. I learned very early in my career to never “be that guy” but only see or hear about “that guy”.

I love good wine and craft beer but have learned to minimize it big time especially doing Keto on the road.

I’m a Vodka Tonic guy and too easily justify a drink or three (always a double) after a long day, customer dinner, or event.

Doing Keto30 of absolutely no drinking was a very good thing for me along with not drinking on any weeknights when I’m home.

This is a struggle and growth area for me.

My biggest change has been adding one glass of water with every alcoholic drink. I call it the 1:1 Water Match Program – and it’s absolutely free to join

Key Takeaway – Make Sure You’re In Control

 

9 – How do you handle it when you blow it on the road?

I’ve adopted the James Clear concept called “Avoid the 2nd Mistake” – If I have a bad meal, I don’t justify the day or even the rest of the business trip.

If I don’t work out the 1st day, it’s not a free pass for the rest of the trip.

If you watch baseball, the best closers have the essence of short-term memory. If they blow last night’s game, they need to come back out the next night like it never happened and “begin again.”

Depending on what “blowing it” was for me, in the early days there was some regret and guilt. I had a couple of close friends I could tell “the real story” for some confession and accountability. I wanted to monitor the heart.

Another phrase I use that is helpful to me is “Dip NOT Dive” – when I go “off-road” as I call it from the 6 Energy Habits, I need this to be a quick dip and get right back to what allows me to master the business travel life and avoid the downward spiral and the 2nd mistake.

Learn from it and move on.

Key Takeaway – Avoid the 2nd Mistake

 

10- What advice would you give for a newer business traveler?

  • Learn and apply the Six Energy Habits immediately in your Road Career.
  • If you have bad habits at home, road life will only expose them.
  • Don’t worry about “what everyone else does or says”, you take care of yourself first and foremost.

Learn from my mistakes and others. You don’t have to do it the hard way with a brutal crashing and burning, 40 pounds overweight, burned out, stressed out, and disconnected from family and friends.

Key Takeaway – Own the Six Energy Habits right now!

 

I hope these questions and answers were helpful. They’ve been asked by a number of people, so here it was:
* The good
* The bad
* The ugly

I hope you gained some ideas and appreciated my honesty with the goal of helping you become an Elite Road Warrior.

If you want any more detail or further examples, you can find them in my book, ERW – 6EH to Master the Business Travel Life. It’s available on Amazon in the print version, Kindle digital version, and also on audiobook via Audible.

So, wherever you are on the road, do something, anything, just not nothing to master the business travel life. You Got This!

Why You Need a Sleep Kit on the Road and What Should Go In It

Many business travelers say they don’t sleep very well or very long on the road.

Let me give you my previous view of sleep on the road.

Any given business travel evening, I may be attending or speaking at an event, out to dinner with clients or having dinner with my laptop lover.

You got that, right? You know the business traveler having dinner with their laptop (hence laptop lover) then taking that lover up to your room for a nightcap. Drink in hand, and not water, to crank out the work.

There’s no other way on the road, right?

For me, it looked like having the stadium lights on in the room, TV on, iPad on, phone on, and of course my computer to “crank out the work” after an already long day of work on the road.

Then, after midnight, ending the affair with my laptop lover (at least for tonight) I watch mindless TV, and even though I would pass out physically in my bed, my mind was still running a million miles an hour.

Eventually, I would fall asleep only to wake up a couple of hours later to go to the bathroom and enjoying a parched mouth that felt like cotton balls multiplied in my mouth due to too much alcohol and not enough water.

Ever had THAT happen?

My mind would begin to race of all the things I still had to do and slowly I would fall back asleep only to wake up a couple of hours later sharp as a… bowling ball.

Wash Rinse Repeat – day 2, 3, and 4 of my business trip.

I pushed back when people told me I needed MORE sleep. Huh? I sucked at the sleep I did get, what would MORE bad sleep do for me?

And like I had MORE time for sleep. Oh, the naiveté of Road Life.

Sadly, this is the headline story for too many road warriors on any given business travel night.

Some just believe they’ll never sleep good on the road so why even try.

But here’s the misconception:  Adding sleep is the only way

Lies Nothing But Lies!!

Here’s the Road Reality: Improve Before You Increase

Improve your sleep before you increase your sleep. Improve that 5 or 6 hours you are getting every night then we’ll address adding any sleep.

If what you get doesn’t improve first, adding more bad sleep is not going to be the answer.

I’m the poster child visual of THAT subject and have had years to perfect it.

Here’s the Point:

Think Quality of Sleep then Quantity of Sleep. Improve Before You Increase.

Got it? Improve what? The quality of sleep you’re getting right now in a hotel room.

Then and only then…

Increase what? The quantity of sleep.

So, why do you need a sleep kit on the road?

Well, if the answer isn’t obvious, let me put those DoubleTree cookies on the bottom shelf and say it:

There’s a GREAT chance what sleep you get on the road isn’t good or to use our word, quality, and before we plan on adding any additional sleep (INCREASE), we need to IMPROVE the sleep you are getting.

So, now that we have that as a baseline, how do you begin to improve the sleep you’re getting?

  1. Create a Road Warrior Sleep Kit.

I know you can giggle, I did and pushed back for a long time.

But between us girls? For the longest time, my sleep kit was a secret sauce – alcohol.

But wait, Mr. Elite Road Warrior guy? Alcohol makes me sleepy and how I justify drinking before bed. How do you respond to that!

Now, although alcohol may make you sleep and help you fall asleep QUICKER, the goal isn’t quick, it’s QUALITY. Remember, improve before increase.

I would sleep quicker with my secret sauce but even if I didn’t have too much to drink, I didn’t wake up rested. I woke up more – to go to the bathroom, or because my mouth was dry, etc. and I felt groggy, not sharp in the morning.

Not the end goal, road warrior.

After a while, I heard of CEOs, musicians, athletes, and other high performers using certain elements that improved the quality of their sleep.

I studied what they did to improve the quality of their sleep. I interviewed sleep experts like Terry Cralle now on the Elite Road Warrior Group Team and then began putting these elements into a “some assembly required” sleep kit for me to take on the road. Literally.

Let’s break this Sleep Kit down.

The first question always asked of me is what do you put the sleep elements in?

You could just randomly put them into your carry-on but I’m one of those organized… okay OCD business travelers who “has a place” for everything so I wanted an organized system. Hence…

The Case

It’s up to you but my criteria was as follows:

  • Portable – “To go”
  • Slim – Doesn’t take up much room in my carry-on
  • See-Through – Able to see what was in there for easy access

That’s it – nothing magical or high tech, just functional for the road.

You may find your own criteria but you’re welcome to start with mine.

So, what actually goes IN the Sleep Kit?

The Elements

Now, mine came from trial and error and some came from simply trying to solve a problem. For example, the 1st three elements in my sleep kit…

1. Clips

Once I started having the room as dark as possible and not allowing any light in to IMPROVE the QUALITY of my sleep, I started making some “solve the problem” additions to my kit.

This sounds so remedial but one of my biggest pet peeves is light coming through the seams of the curtains.

And all too often my room faces the parking lot with the stadium lights coming through my room.

Having clips that can hold the curtains shut is huge for me. I carry three to make sure those curtains are locked down.

I bought mine from an office supply store and are larger clips.

2. Electrical Tape

Back to my “solve a problem” rant, once the curtains were closed, now it was the little lights all over the room that are hardly noticable in the light. But when it is dark? They look like laser lights. Not cool man.

Hence the electrical tape. I tried putting a towel over these lights but the light would still shine through or the towel would fall. I’ll use a tiny little strip of electrical tape on the tv light, microwave, smoke detector, etc.

I also unplug the alarm clock then use duct tape for the large crack of the room door. Just kidding

Yeah, although a lot of fun, not the best use of time and electrical tape. I’ll use a large bathroom towel to cover the light from the door seam.

3. Cotton Balls

Not the ones in your mouth from too much drinking but for the vents.

Changing the scent in your room to be both familiar but also prepare you for sleep is key.

You’re wanting routine and this will help.

I change the day scent (which for me is Eucalyptus) to Lavender for the evening.

I also have the AC system on the ON selection, not AUTO so it’s constantly running to minimize noise and keep the scent flowing.

4. Essential Oils

This is part two of the cotton balls.

I keep a few cotton balls in my Sleep Kit, put a few drops of essential oils, and that’s it. Simple and effective. This is for the consistent, enjoyable scent for the room.

Now, for bedtime, I personally put the essential oils of Lavender and Serenity (from DoTerra) and mix them with fractionated coconut oil that goes in a small rollerball and then rub it on the bottom of my feet which is the place that absorbs the quickest into my body) to calm my system.

I was a skeptic of essential oils and now use them in so many ways:

  • Change the scent in the room
  • Help me sleep
  • Put lemon oil drops in my morning water
  • Massage sore muscles
  • Better breath

5. Blue-Blocker Glasses

Not only do they look cool, but they’re also critically important because we’re almost always on a screen that emits blue light most if not all of the evening.

The reality is we’re going to have devices on in the evening which means that blue light is going to affect the quality of our sleep and that’s what we’re talking about here first: IMPROVE then INCREASE.

I bought some cheap ones to try them out and now invested into the top of the line, Swanwick blue-blocker glasses because I used them so much. I got mine from the Sleep Score Lab.

6. Eye Mask

I’m still not a fan of the eye mask because I feel strange wearing it, but they work and when I need to have it, I’d rather have it available.

I find that it’s most handy for me if I have a very very late flight and want to try and sleep in – I want it in grabbing distance if I wake up and see the light streaming in. My two teenage sons react to morning light like vampires in training but scared of blood. Go figure.

It’s one of those again where I bought a cheap one off Amazon to try it out then upgraded to a Swanwick one from Sleep Score Lab since it proved worthy of my Sleep Kit.

And lastly, the big-ticket item…

7. Bose Sleep Buds

These surprised me. I’m a big fan of the BOSE noise-canceling headphones but why would Bose invest in the sleep industry? You can find them here.

Because a quality night of sleep on the road is big business.

I can do all I can do to control the light but when that blasted hotel door slams shut, the elevator or ice machine is used, or your clueless neighbor next door has his TV on at 4 am before his flight, on a late conference call, or a family of kids with a toddler sporting his lungs, these are an absolute lifesaver.

This is how they work:

  • They’re small and fit so comfortably in your ear. You have a ton of soothing, noise-canceling sounds you can choose from that are downloaded actually onto the ear bud.
  • The sound is not a loop but continual.
  • You can set an alarm which I absolutely love because then I don’t have to rely on the alarm clock, power going out, or the front desk missing the wake-up call or getting it wrong.

I also love them because I’m in control and sleep is my biggest performance enhancer on the road.

To me, worth the investment.

After reading these suggestions, I hope you realize the importance of QUALITY in your sleep. Try these tips and products for your sleep kit, and have the best sleep of your life! (Ok maybe not the best, but that’s what we’re working towards!)