I had not experienced passenger rail service in the United States for about 35 years. So last week I decided to take the train rather than fly to another city to spend time with employees and customers. Although the outbound segment was a couple of hours late, I found the entire experience to be a very pleasant change of pace from the endless lines, personal space intrusions, and hurry-up-and-wait nature of air travel. The experience made me think about the benefits of changing our habits or trying a new approach. Not necessarily to make that change permanent, but simply to experience something new.

Taking the train enabled me to do something that many of us find challenging – to actually sit and think. Similar to what Thomas Friedman mentions in his new book “Thank You for Being Late,” it gave me an opportunity to pause, appreciate, and reflect upon several aspects of my personal and professional existence. I am not going to disparage the pace of our business nor the constant flow of information that accompanies our modern lives, as I believe we all understand the need to unplug in order to truly connect with others. Rather, I wish to suggest that we all need to look for opportunities to spend time doing nothing. Even if that means staring out of an Amtrak window as a frozen Midwestern landscape passes by. In my case, it afforded me the time to more deeply examine the Net Promotor Scores from my organization’s latest customer satisfaction survey; brainstorm some methods for my team to bring new ideas to our customers; and plan my team’s coverage model for next year. All while reading (and possibly being subconsciously influenced by) Ben Horowitz’s “The Hard Thing About Hard Things”.

Choosing a more relaxed mode of travel also enabled me to engage with a completely different group of people. Being engaged in B2B sales, we understand how the value we bring to our customers is enhanced by our understanding of the behavior of those customers’ customers. Taking an alternate path enabled me to share an experience with a different demographic and draw additional insights into their needs and behaviors. For example, riding on the train afforded me the opportunity to share a dining car booth with a sales rep who is in a completely different business than mine. I was able to learn a bit about his organization’s engagement and operations models, which will likely influence my own thinking about new ways for my team to engage with our customers. I had an enjoyable conversation with members of the train’s crew and learned how their responsibilities and lifestyle differ from those of my other travel industry customers. I cannot say for sure how sharing my trip with several Amish families directly influenced my thoughts, but it did remind me that American consumers truly come from all walks of life, each with their own needs and behaviors.

I realize that I could have done most of the above while choosing air travel, but I likely would not have. Breaking out of my usual routine and experiencing something new woke up my senses and provided a different sort of creative spark. For me, the combination of reading, reflection, and reassessment was exactly what I needed as we head into the final weeks of the 4th quarter and the anticipation of the new year.