Baggage Fees

We make a big fuss when we want to fly somewhere and we have to pay for our suitcases to fly too. It adds up. It makes us mad. Baggage should fly free with our ticket price. But let’s look at this in a different way (not that I’m trying to tell you the airlines should charge you for your bags – this is just my clever way of bringing up another topic). Do I have your attention?

Your baggage costs you all the time. It costs you in missed opportunities. Everyone can identify with love and romance, so I like to use dating analogies. Imagine you have been burned by the last girl you dated. You put all of your feelings out there. You really loved her and you told her that you did. She broke up with you anyway, shortly after you shared your feelings with her. You decided not to do that again. That’s baggage.

So now you are dating a new girl. Actually, she’s not new anymore. You’ve been going out for two years. She’s met your family and they all like her. You do too - you like her a lot. She’s told you that she loves you. You can’t bear to say it back because you are afraid that she will break up with you. It’s ridiculous, really - because she’s said it. You still won’t. It’s your baggage. And it’s going to cost you because she really needs to hear it from you. It’s the price of baggage.

We do it in farming too. We have a client right now who can’t trust the marketing recommendation that we’re making. He has worked with another firm in the past that burned him on a similar recommendation. The firm was sloppy and didn’t follow through on its promise to closely watch and manage the position. The farmer was left holding the bag. Literally, it’s baggage that he now carries into our door.

We didn’t do it. We’re like the second girl - who really loves him - and he is not loving us back. He was burned by someone else. He’s breaking our heart, hurting his future and paying baggage fees.