I Am Not the Loudest Person in the Room

The first picture in my head was not the training room.

It was the flight.

That sounds simple, maybe a little strange, but it is true. When The Mayor asked me what I saw first when I thought about the training in Belgium, I did not see the trainer, the schedule, the people, or the room. I saw myself travelling with hand luggage and my laptop. I saw the airport, the plane, the feeling of being on a business trip.

For me, this is still special.

Normally, when I fly somewhere, I fly with my family. Then the feeling is different. The laptop stays at home. Work is not in my head in the same way. You go on holiday, you look after your family, you have your bags, maybe toys, maybe snacks, maybe all the small things you need when you travel with a child. It is more relaxed, but also full in another way.

A business flight is different. You have your hand luggage, your laptop, your documents, your thoughts. You sit in the airplane and maybe you work a little. I did this before on a trip to England, and I remember thinking: this is interesting. Maybe from the outside it is nothing special. A flight is a flight. But for me it was special because I was travelling for work. Somebody was paying me to fly to another place because I had a task there.

Yes, right. That still feels a little special.

This time I fly from Prague to Brussels. Munich would also be possible, and the driving time is almost the same, around two hours. But Prague is cheaper, the parking is cheaper, the airport is smaller, and the departure time is better. There are also no roadworks on the way, or at least this is not the problem. So I choose Prague. It is practical. It makes sense.

The Mayor asked if I was prepared for the training. And here I had to smile a little, because the honest answer was: not really.

I had the information. It was not that nobody sent it to me. I had emails. I just had not looked at everything yet. I knew I would fly to Brussels. I knew someone would pick me up. I knew we would drive to the hotel. I guessed that maybe the next day there would be a visit somewhere. But I did not know exactly where the training was. In a company building? In a hotel? I had to check.

The Mayor became a little worried. I could hear it.

He knows that normally I prepare myself before I go somewhere. When I visit customers, I look at the company. I make notes. I think about the person. I try to understand how they tick. I do not like to arrive empty. For me, preparation is part of respect.

But this felt different.

For the training, we were told that we did not have to prepare anything special. We should come, listen, and give our full attention. We were also told not to use mobile phones or laptops during the training. I understand this. Full attention is important. But no, I do not think I will give my phone to somebody before I enter a room. I can leave it in my pocket. I can be disciplined.

The training is about a new CRM system. In simple words, it is a program we have to feed with information when we travel to customers. I already know CRM from an earlier job, and there it was very easy. So in my head I already had one question: are we making this bigger than it is?

Maybe I am wrong. I am open to that. But sometimes systems are introduced like they are the solution for everything, and then in real life you still need your Excel files because the system does not have all the features you need. Then the work does not become less. It becomes more. You work in the CRM, and you work in your own lists, because that is the only way you can work really well.

I hope this system helps me. I really do. I hope we have fewer lists, not more. I hope it is easy. For me, a good system must be clear in the first few seconds. Where can I find the customers? Where can I write my customer report? Where is the information I need when I am on the road? If it is too complicated, it is not good.

Salespeople do not need a system that looks impressive in a meeting. We need a system that works on a normal day.

Still, when I thought about the trip, the training itself was not the most important thing for me. The most important thing was meeting the other salespeople.

I am happy to see people from other countries. I hope there is time to speak with them, maybe in the evening, maybe with a beer. I want to know how they work. What are their customers like? What priorities do they have? What routines do they use? Maybe someone from Italy works in a very different way from someone in Germany. The mentality is different. The market is different. The way people talk, decide, trust, and sell can be different.

This interests me.

Not because I want to copy everything. I do not think like this. But maybe somebody has a good idea. Maybe somebody has a good routine. Maybe I hear one sentence and six months later I understand why it was useful.

In sales, you learn every day. I have done this job for five years now, and I still think there are always points you can do better. You never finish learning people. You never finish learning situations.

The Mayor asked me if there was pressure in the room, maybe competition, because I would meet other salespeople. I do not feel it like this. I am quite relaxed. I am not going there to be the loudest person in the room.

I am an observer.

When I enter a room, I see very fast who is loud, who asks many questions, who likes to be present. That is easy to see. But the quiet people, you have to look more closely. Sometimes they are quiet because their English is not so good. Sometimes they need more time. Sometimes they are thinking. Sometimes they understand more than everybody thinks.

I know this because I am also more on the quieter side. When I have a question, I ask it. I am not afraid of that. But I am not the energy bundle in the room. I am not the main clown. I do not need to fill every silence.

Maybe this is also emotional balance for me. To know where I stand in a room. To not force myself to be someone else. To listen first, to watch, and then to speak when there is something to say.

The Mayor provoked me a little. He said the picture he got was: I will go to Belgium and wait and see what happens.

And yes, that was right.

He did not like it completely. He could not say exactly why, but he felt I could be more proactive. Maybe write someone before. Maybe say, I hope we can have a beer or an espresso together. Maybe use the chance more actively.

I understood what he meant. And maybe he was right. But I also know myself. At this moment, before the trip, I was not so deep in the training yet. When the training starts, I am focused. Then I am there. Then I listen. Then I ask questions if I have them.

Before that, I was relaxed.

Maybe too relaxed? I do not know.

I had a plan for Wednesday. In the morning, I wanted to start with a workout, a one-hour run, because in the evening I would miss football training. Football is part of my rhythm, and when I cannot go, I like to replace it with something. After that, I would prepare my luggage, have a coffee, check my mails, maybe start my laptop. I wanted to finish most of my work the day before so Wednesday could be calm. I could not visit customers on the way to Prague because after thirty or forty kilometres I am already near the border, and on that side I have no customers.

So yes, maybe it was almost like a day off. A little work, a little sport, coffee, luggage, then the drive to the airport.

This is how I like to start a trip. Not with stress. Not with last-minute chaos. Calm.

We also talked about trainings from the past. Some parts I really do not like. Role plays, for example. I know they can help, but I do not like them. In one training, we were about twenty people, and we had to present ourselves. There was a camera. They filmed us. After that, we all watched the video together and analyzed what was good and what was bad.

Hearing yourself on video is horrible.

It helps, yes. But it is painful. Both things are true.

When I was new in sales, I was very open to all these trainings. I learned from every person and from every topic. Some people who had worked in sales for twenty or twenty-five years said, “You do not need this in the real job.” They said you do not need role plays. But I think sometimes people say this because they do not like the discomfort.

And maybe this is also something I have learned: discomfort is not always useless. Sometimes it is the place where you see yourself more clearly.

I do not like being filmed. I do not like hearing my own voice. I do not like artificial situations where everybody watches you. But I also know that I can learn from it. The problem is not always the training. Sometimes the problem is that the training shows you something you would rather not see.

With Belgium, I was not nervous. I was not skeptical in a heavy way. I was simply relaxed. I thought, let’s see what comes.

Could the CRM training have been done online? Maybe, yes. The system could probably be explained on Teams. You could sit at home, listen, click, ask questions, and learn by doing. But bringing people together has another purpose. It is not only about the program. It is about the people. It is about the conversations around the training, in the breaks, in the evening, in small moments when you understand how someone else works.

That part cannot really happen in the same way online.

The funny thing is that when The Mayor started with emotional balance, I did not first think about emotions. I thought about airports, roadworks, luggage, CRM, Excel files, beer with other salespeople, and a run before the flight.

But maybe this is exactly where emotional balance lives for me.

It is not always a big feeling. It is not always a deep conversation. Sometimes it is choosing the smaller airport because it makes the day easier. Sometimes it is finishing your work one day earlier so you can travel calmly. Sometimes it is accepting that you are not the loudest person in the room. Sometimes it is knowing that you can be relaxed now and focused later.

And sometimes it is trusting that even when you do not know exactly what will happen, you will arrive, look around, listen carefully, and find your place.