Mar 9

Mar 9 The Hectic Trade Show Season is Underway. Here’s Your (Unorthodox) Game Plan for Staying Well

Happy International Women’s Day, and Women’s History Month!

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How do we stay well as we travel through this year’s hectic trade show season?

That’s the theme and the question for this week’s post, and I promise I’m going to get to it. I’m going to approach it in a little bit of a round-about way, however. It starts with saying the unorthodox and unexpected thing.

Which is that I LOVE the hectic trade show season. I love the hectic energy. I love the trade and the business aspects. I love the show and the event “performances.” And I love that it’s a season that will come and go, and hopefully come around again next year.

Weird, right?

I’m not avoiding the reality that trade shows are a lot of work, they’re chaotic, they’re exhausting to navigate, and plenty of us are wondering whether we’re getting enough return on our investment of attending. I get all of that.

And yet. And yet! I love them.

Why?

The quick answer is that solo travel, for me as a working parent and wife, is rejuvenating. Anyone who’s ever felt the relief of making decisions for yourself and yourself alone will understand. IYKYK.

But for anyone who’s significantly less enthusiastic than I am at this time of year at the prospect of the trade show and conference season, let me share a few of the tips and practices that help immeasurably toward a more sane experience.

There’s an App for That. Seriously.

The App Store is approaching its 16th anniversary (!!!), and I giggle a bit at updating the old saying of “There’s an app for that” to “There’s an app for boosting serotonin levels.” Seriously. Kindle and Audible are obvious and well-worn apps for making travel lighter and more enjoyable. (Current titles for me include When Grumpy Met Sunshine, Travel Light, Mrs Quinn’s Rise to Fame, and Swing Time.) I also have two additional, newer suggestions to share. One is to try drumming apps like Drumeo, or else simply play “Start It Up” by the Atlanta Drum Academy. (The rhythmic sounds of drums have been shown to increase serotonin and dopamine levels in the brain. Seriously.) A second suggestion is to build your own private boards on Pinterest, at least one of which is curated to help you remember why you do what you do – why you’re traveling to these trade shows and conferences – in the first place.

The ”Light Travel” Packing List

Packing a suitcase is a little like Priority Origami: configuring must-have elements in a confined, satisfying space. Here’s my personal cheat sheet for a condensed, useful, sometimes-stylish packing list.

1. Disposable contact lenses

2. Shawl

3. Jewelry

4. Digital business card

5. Faux leather pants

6. Allbirds shoes

7. Herbs, particularly to aid digestion: ashwaganda, triphala, Maha

8. The slimmest print volume of any reading you’re currently enjoying. For me, that’s A Gentle Reminder by Bianca Spiracino.

9. A planner that doubles as a calendar and enough room to journal

10. The Peloton app. Again with the apps, I know. But taking exercise on the road is imo an invaluable sanity-preserver. Also, Denis Morton. IYKYK.

Another suggestion: pack in advance if you can, over several days. Do it in small phases. Pack your jewelry one day. Toiletries the next. Workout clothes the day after that. There’s a calm to this, like breaking down a big presentation into manageable chunks. You’ve built in your own margin for error. You have given yourself some grace. You won’t make wait-till-last-minute mistakes.

Meditate, Every Morning

As one of my teachers says, “You wake up, and you sit down.” I aim for 30 minutes but five or even two minutes help. Close your eyes. Set the intention for the day. Stay in it for as long as possible. After that, it’s out of your hands. But give the chain reaction of good stuff (thank you, James Clear) a good chance to succeed, right from the start of the day.

One last thing. Another reason I love the hectic trade show season is how much writing that gets done while I’m traveling. At home I have an idyllic writing space. Truly. The best desk. The best view. The best equipment. But guess where some my best writing happens? In the Notes app of my phone, usually while waiting to board a flight or in my seat waiting for that flight to take off. Partly it’s the advantage of breaking routine, and the new outlooks that provides. Partly, too, it’s the serendipity of inspiration, and the fickleness of the muse. Catch it where catch can.

In a way, those last few sentences punctuate what I hope for you this hectic trade show season. Advantage. Breaking routine. New outlooks. Serendipity of inspiration. Fickleness of the muse.

And catch where catch can.

Namaste,
Cathy

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Cathy Huyghe

Cathy Huyghe is a dynamic media professional with a special interest in wine and the spirit of hospitality. She is also an effective, engaging public speaker on subjects ranging from wine and gastronomy to digital media and entrepreneurship.

Cathy is the co-founder and CEO of Enolytics, a big data startup providing business intelligence for the wine industry. She also currently writes for Forbes.com about the business and politics of the wine industry, and for Inc.com about entrepreneurs with a special focus on women. She is the author of the award-winning book Hungry for Wine: Seeing the World through the Lens of a Wine Glass; she was a finalist for the 2016 IWSC Wine Communicator of the Year award; and she won the 2016 Innovator of the Year award from Diaz Communications.

Cathy's writing has appeared in print and online for both general-interest and wine industry publications including the Harvard Business Review network, The Atlantic, Decanter, Food52.com (where she was the "Wine, Unfussed" columnist), DailyBeast, The Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Wine Enthusiast, GlobalPost, Grist.org, and Daily Candy. She has also been featured on the BBC, WNYC, WGBH, and Nevada Public Radio.

Cathy is the founder of 365daysofwine.com and Red White Boston, a digital media company for the wine industry. Red White Boston produced daily content, monthly tasting events, and a location-based iPhone app of video wine recommendations from their network of 30+ local partner stores. While in Boston, she also managed the wine cellar at WGBH public broadcasting station and managed wine events for donors and the public.

Cathy’s restaurant experience started when she knocked on the kitchen door at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. She also has worked for Jean-Pierre Vigato in Paris (at Natachef bistro and at his two-star restaurant, Apicius) and for Thomas Keller at Bouchon in Las Vegas. She studied at La Varenne École de Cuisine in Burgundy, France; she completed the Wine Studies program at Boston University; and she received Advanced Certification from WSET (Wine and Spirits Education Trust).

Cathy received a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard in 2004 and a second master’s degree in Journalism in 2010, also from Harvard. Before that, she received a master’s degree in comparative literature from the City University of New York in 1998 and a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in 1995. She is also a trained mediator, and worked for two years at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School on a project in the Middle East.

In April 2008 she founded the Harvard Alumni in Wine and Food special interest group, which provides educational and networking services to the Harvard alumni and current students. She has also served as the President of the Harvard Club of Georgia, and she has begun a term of service on the Board of Directors for the Harvard Alumni Association.

Her other non-profit involvement includes the Women's Solidarity Society at the new National Center for Civil & Human Rights (Atlanta), grant reviewer for the Food Well Alliance (an Atlanta-based organization that supports the local network of 350 urban farms and community gardens), Coach at GOTR (Girls on the Run) in Atlanta, Board Member at the Greening Youth Foundation (Atlanta), Board Member at The Food Project (Boston), and Mediator at the Neighborhood Justice Center (Las Vegas).

She lives in Atlanta with her husband, their twin boys, and their Bernese Mountain dog, Coco.

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