Sanders Says

3 travel tips for better looking clothes-on-the-go

I speak at conferences for a living, usually in a suit and tie. 

There's no excuse for a crumpled suit or shirt.  Whether I'm on a ten day, seven city jag -- or driving across town -- I need to look my best to impress. 

Over the last few years, I've come up with three travel habits that deliver gig-ready clothes regardless of how much suitcase time they've gone through: 

1.  Carry a travel steamer.  You can buy this Samsonite model for less than fifty bucks and it fits neatly in any roller bag.  This is much better than leaving your suit in the shower (and uses much less water too). Be careful not to burn your finer suits or dresses by keeping your distance. 

2.  Buy Brooks Brothers non-iron dress shirts.  I buy them online, then have them tailored in LA.  No matter how long they are in your bag, you can make 'em look like new with a few squirts from your steamer.  

3.  Always put a dry cleaner plastic bag around each hanger (shirts, suits, etc.).  This is the magic secret of minimizing wrinkles in a suiter (which folds up into a roller bag).  The plastic bags dramatically reduce the wrinkles.  A small tip is to have a very hard flat item placed between your folded suiter and the contents of your bag.  This keeps your shoes, steamer, chargers from pressing up against your folded suits and shirts.  

Coming later this week:  My top three hotel stays of 2008 (out of over 100!).  

Travel on purpose, reduce anxiety

I had a feature in today's New York Times! 

(The Chatterer's Guide To Easing Anxiety) 

The point of the essay is that purpose solves suffering, so live on purpose. When you see suffering in others as they are attempting to complete a task -- ask them about their purpose.  

Purpose is a cure for spiritual cancer.  If you haven't already, pick up a copy of Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl.  It'll blow your mind.  

Curiosity drives the Lovecat

I travel well over half the year.   Yesterday, I was in Copenhagen.

Airports, hotels and ballrooms are my life-venues.

How do I cope?  Through a sense of purpose, laced with intense curiosity.  When I visit a new place, I'm always looking to learn something new about its culture.  This drives me out of my room and into the wonderful world of the new.

When I sit on a plane, I'm interested in the person sitting next to me.  This drives me from an iPod induced state of (rude) silence and into a conversation that may very well be life changing.

This picture (above) is the theme for one of Copenhagen's famous contemporary art museums.  It sums up a fabu philosophy about overcoming the fear of the unknown -- and turning painful business travel into joyous globe trotting.

Travel stress free via the gift of music

Today I gave a talk in Baltimore. Right after the talk, I hustled to the Balitmore airport and after getting my boarding pass I got in a loooooooong line for security.

How long? A few football fields' worth! Signs claimed that I would only be in line for about 30 minutes, but the line was very intimidating. On top of that, everyone was completely stressed out about missing their flight. You could read it on their faces. Babies screamed. Businessmen cringed. It was a cacophony of chaos.

What did I do? I fished my IPOD out of my briefcase and popped in ear buds. I put on the Shins (Wincing The Night Away) and ignored the whole experience. I smiled, enjoyed their record, and in about 45 minutes I cleared security and sauntered to my gate rather unaffected by the whole security line fiasco.

Lesson learned: When stressed out, let your music save you. While others heard noise, I heard music. Don't let travel stres get the best of you when you have so many alternatives for your attention. I will never suffer in silence again at the airport.

Head down to Austin

When I think of Austin, I think of good people, good music and good food.

In that order.

I was in Austin on Tuesday to speak at a meeting for Texchange (a group of Austin execs, investors and leaders.) I just love Austin. But the people stand out the most.

I spent some time with my friends JB and Sandy at the Mix on their morning show. We goofed, opined and tried to help some listeners make themselves even more emotionally attractive. Later that night I drove up the Austin Country Club and talked to a few hundred close friends at the Texchange event.

When in Austin: Check out Emo's on 6th Street and the Continental Club on Congress. Get world class Mexican Food at the original Chuy's on Barton Springs. The super cool hotel in town is the San Jose.

Check out blog postings related to my Austin visit:
JBs Blog
Thom Singer's Blog

Do the travel two step safety dance

Many of you travel for your business life. We have very similar business related demands (early appointments, flights that cannot be missed, etc). Over the last few years, I've been collecting advice tips on how to travel with fewer hassles or calamities.

One of my techniques I call the Two Step Safety Dance. The concept is simple; redundancy doubles your chance to get it right. I got the idea from Tom Peters. He mentioned to me once that in his suitcase he always has two alarm clocks -- one electric and one wind up. Much like Jerry Seinfeld, he can't make his bets on the front desk (or the supplied alarm clock) getting it right. And if he misses a gig because he's overslept, he's outa business. Now I carry my own trusty travel alarm and have a wakeup call scheduled with the front desk. I ask them what time they have and syncronize my travel alarm to it. I have the wake up call, then five minutes later the alarm clock will go off as a backup. If I get the wakeup call first, I turn my alarm off. The other day, I had a speaking gig until 10pm in Houston and needed to be in Orlando the next day for a talk at 1pm. Tight. Gotta wake up at 4:30am, get a car at 5:30am, get to the airport for the 7:30am flight or miss the next gig. Fortunately, the wake up call came as promised, but I slept much better knowing that there was a backup plan. (NOTE: I THINK WE ALL LOSE SLEEP WHEN WE HAVE TO GET UP EARLY, WORRYING THAT WE'LL OVERSLEEP. WE WAKE UP AN HOUR AHEAD AND JUST TOSS AND TURN.)

The other two step safety dance (redundancy) has to do with flights. If you have to make a flight to make a meeting, don't stake your bet on one plane. Buy multiple tickets, the first non-refundable and the rest fully refundable or changeable. You cannot safely assume that if your first flight doesn't go (equipment, weather, destination city issue) that you'll be put on the next one. It may be sold out.

NEVER use the same rewards account number for any two flights you book. Use different credit cards if you book to flights on the same airline back to back. If they see duplicate reservations in the system, they may throw one out. Yesterday, I had a ticket on the 7:30am flight and also owned a seat on the 8:45am too. Good thing, the 8:45am was the most popular flight and sold out last week. Fortunately, my flight went on time, I called the airline and they refunded the money on my cancelled second seat. I don't do this all the time, but there are certain occassions where I cannot trust mother nature or an airline to get me to the church on time. And when you need it, the two step works like a charm in your harried gotta-be-there business life.

PS -- Unplug the alarm clock in your hotel room. It is not reliable. Many are hard to figure out. Some have alarms already set to go off at 3am -- waking you up in the middle of the night.