Between Gates and Goodbyes

I’m sitting in Dallas Love Field Airport right now writing this (when you read it it will have been yesterday November 24th) right where gate 10 intersects with the food court.

I snagged a seat on the edge of the foot court facing down the gates…

And. I’m. just. watching. people.

People nonstop…like my flight back to Vegas.

People rushing to gates with backpacks bouncing on their shoulders. People locked into their phones, almost bumping into each other. Parents trying to pull tired kids along. Literally pulling, screaming at their kids.

Business travelers speed-walking like they’ve got nitro in their shoes.

It’s chaos. motion and energy in every direction.

As I sit watching and thinking of how I want to angle this present experience for this newsletter… bada bing bada boom!

The more I watched, the more clear the chaos became.

None of these people should be “following up” on anything. In an airport, the only thing to follow up on is your gate and your flight time, reality is, they’re passing through. Headed to the next gate. The Whataburger. The mens or ladies room.

This is wickidly similar to how most people treat their business.

Always moving forward, looking for the next opportunity, the next shiny object, the next new lead.

Never circling back, rarely completing the conversation, forgetting to return to what they’ve previously started.

From my seat here, people just look like streams crossing each other and never stopping. Missing each other. Missing opportunities.

Movement looks like and feels like progress. Being busy feels like productivity.

And neither one means a damn thing if there’s no intention behind it.

The airport isn’t teaching follow up, it says move on already!

So does life. So does business.

Everyone is trained to keep going forward…very few people are trained to go back.

That’s where the fortune is (for follow up) - where the relationships are - where the trust is - where the deals are sitting…untouched, unopened, ignored.

Follow-up lives in what was almost finished.

Emails you allllmost sent. The call you overthought about making. The message that got left on read without any action. That “circle back later” you never circled back to.

Watching everyone sprinting ahead in the airport, I thought to myself the real outcome in this message ——-> stopping, turning around, and completing unfinished business…not in a literal sense in the airport but in a metaphorical sense in relationship to follow up.

Unfinished business that gets finished!

That’s why follow-up works.

Complete what you start.

See you next week Follow Up Fam.

Manny “That Follow Up Guy” Vargas