I Shouldn’t Say It Won’t Work

I'm in San Antonio this week for the National Auction Association Conference. I go to a few different events put on by the National Auction Association, and I always come home having learned something I didn't know I needed.
Yesterday I sat in a class about running an auction in a way I'd never heard of before. While the speaker was talking, Alex called. I sent him to voicemail and sent him the speaker's website instead. When the class let out, I called him back. We both said the same thing, almost at the same time: there's no way that works.
Except it does. The speaker's done it for two years now.
Here's the thing I keep circling back to. I don't know if we'll ever run an auction the way this guy does. I haven't even seen it in action myself. But I also once didn't know if we'd ever do a simulcast auction. Or an online auction. We've done both. So I've stopped trusting myself when I say something won't work, because my track record on that particular sentence isn't great. That's really why I come to these conferences. I could research all of this on my own, sure. I don't think I actually would have.
I'm not going to tell you what it was. I don't need people asking me when we're doing it.
Sunday, before any of that, I sat in a class on interpersonal communication for auction professionals. It was good. What happens in that room stays in that room, so I'll leave it there. But it got me thinking about a question that comes up more than people realize, not just in a classroom: what are you grateful for.
I've heard it asked at conferences, at dinner tables, in interviews. Spouse. God. Life. Good, solid answers, every time. Once, I said Gatorade. I wanted to be different, and people laughed, which was the goal. But it sat with me afterward — I was a little hurt, if I'm honest, even though I set it up myself. I am grateful for the big things. I'm also allowed to be grateful for the little ones. Both can be true.
Somewhere in there I also got a little carried away. On the shuttle from the airport parking lot to the terminal, I told a group of people that my brother sells 600 cars an hour. I texted Alex later to check my math. It's 50 to 70. I was excited to be here. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Yesterday afternoon I walked over to the Alamo. Someone in the group asked me what the big deal was. I blanked. What came out was something about David Bowie fighting there, which — no. Not that Bowie. There's a Bowie knife because of Jim Bowie, who did fight and die there, alongside Davey Crockett. We lost the Alamo. I know this because I asked Gemini for a quick rundown and it jogged loose what I already half-knew.
Someone else asked why we bother remembering a loss. I told them we only lost it for a little while. We're standing here.
Happy Bidding!
Kara C. Belcher-Miller