I love to travel–and I especially love to travel on Southwest Airlines. And this year, I have the honor of being among a wonderful group of #SouthwestStorytellers. Throughout the year, a team of us will be sharing our travel stories and having some LUVing fun with Southwest Airlines.
Early this year, I met up with the team for the first time at the Southwest headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Before arriving, I stopped in at the Ziglar headquarters to see Tom Ziglar and Howard Partridge. (You can find their stories in my book, Unwrapping Your Passion.) This was my first time at the office and Zig Ziglar’s spirit was everywhere. Zig has touched millions and millions of lives everywhere with his wisdom about sales, business, and life.
Howard and Tom were in the middle of a Ziglar Business Boot camp. While Howard was talking, I spied a big bag of Southwest peanuts lying on a table. I had seen pictures of Howard with the Southwest peanuts and pretzels, but I wasn’t sure what the story was behind all those snacks.
Turns out, the story can be found in Howard’s new book, The Power of Community.
During one flight, Howard began to tease the flight attendant about the lack of peanuts on his tray when he awoke from a nap. Southwest Airlines attendants are often playful and fun, the company is known for excellent customer service. Howard ended up with more peanuts than he bargained for–on that flight and more. Howard began tossing the peanuts to clients at his business events and entwined business lessons from Southwest in his talks.
“When you create a sense of community among your team members and you have a solid mission, it spills over to your customers, creating loyalty and therefore resulting in higher profits,” Howard writes in The Power of Community.
Both Howard and Tom are on a mission to help people grow–both personally and professionally. Check out their upcoming workshops and conferences: Ziglar Events
Now, on to Southwest…
What an amazing company. I have been flying Southwest for a long time now and I choose them every chance I get. As a deaf traveler, the company is very accessible–I can receive text alerts for gate changes and flight information. I can sit up front where I can lipread the attendants and they can get to me quickly if there are any changes in flight. Whenever I’m in a situation where I can’t use my videophone to call Southwest–they’ve been incredibly responsive through Twitter. And check out the Southwest Airlines intern who is deaf: Southwest Intern Defies the Odds and Soars.
There are eleven of us who make up the team of #SouthwestStorytellers:
We met for dinner the first evening and got to know one another. Kyler and Kody McCormick are also from Illinois–and we discovered we knew a fellow barefoot water skier as a mutual friend. The next day we took a tour of Southwest headquarters–learning about operations, social media, and their specialized training. In one area of headquarters, the meeting rooms are named for the different languages that employees speak. Of course, I had to stop and take a picture of the American Sign Language meeting room!
You can read more about each of the storytellers here: Meet the #SouthwestStorytellers
I had such a blast getting to know the other storytellers and learning their stories. We all love to travel–follow the hashtag and watch for our adventures! I’m on a quest to barefoot water ski in all 50 states during my 50’s and I’ll be touching a few states this year.
And I’m patiently waiting for the day that Southwest touches down in…
Hawaii!!!! I can’t wait to barefoot there!
