Rebuilding has been a recurring theme in my life.
I lost my mom, then my dad a few years later. There was the apartment fire that triggered my mandatory “Go West, young man” chapter. Then came the disastrous return east, followed by job loss after job loss, both during my drinking years and later in sobriety. Each time, I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and rebuilt. Sometimes willingly. Sometimes because there was no other choice.
Today, December 15, is the anniversary of one of those losses.
I had turned 40 that September and was 12 years sober. At the time, I was selling exhibit space for Multimedia Trade Shows for a trade show each May called New Media. I had been selling that show since 1995, back when the web was still very much in its infancy. I had spent most of my 30s selling exhibit space after getting married, and I genuinely loved the work.
New Media was my favourite show because it sat right at the edge of what was coming next. This was the 1990s, when the “World Wide Web” was still a curiosity to many. One year our keynote speaker was Jim Clark, the founder of Netscape. Macromedia was our largest exhibitor, alongside Adobe and Apple. For someone who loved being at the forefront of technology, this wasn’t just a job. It was heaven.
One of the perks of the job was travelling to U.S. trade shows to recruit exhibitors for our Canadian event. American shows were massive compared to ours. In Canada, we sold exhibit space over the course of the entire year. In the U.S., it was common for a show to sell out the next year’s floor while the current show was still happening. Canadian companies, even loyal exhibitors, were hesitant to commit too far in advance. As a result, we usually sold about 80 percent of the show in the second half of the year.
The 1998 New Media show, however, was a standout. We even sold booths for the 1999 edition at the show, which was a big deal for us. Shortly after, the Canadian owners announced they were selling the show to a Boston-based company called Advanstar. When the deal was announced, I was told I was in line for a Sales Director role, or at least a glorified title. They talked about flying me down to Boston for orientation. It all sounded promising.
Then came December 15.
It was a Tuesday and just closed a record four deals, which was significant given the time of year. I faxed (remember those?) a contract to our new head office in Boston. Almost immediately after, the phone rang.
It was my new manager, a woman whose background was selling exhibit space for a fashion trade show. I assumed I was about to hear a “well done” for the record sales. Instead, she told me my services were no longer required because I was failing to meet their sales targets.
I pointed out that we were well ahead of where we had been at the same time the previous year. She told me we were behind their targets.
And that was that.
I packed up my things, said goodbye to coworkers I had spent the last four years with, and went home to my wife. Ten days before Christmas, I was unemployed. I had sold 55 percent of the floor in six months, but it wasn’t enough to meet the expectations of our new American owners. I spent that Christmas doing a fair bit of wallowing in self-pity. It wasn’t exactly festive.
In the new year, I landed a job with VCR Active Media, one of my former exhibitors, who sold video production and duplication services. When we attended New Media 1999, I learned they had only sold a handful of additional booths after I left. Many exhibitors, people who knew me well, came up to me during the show to express how dissatisfied they were with the new management and the direction of the event. If memory serves, I chalked it up to a familiar theme, American arrogance paired with a belief they knew better than Canadians how things should be done.
That arrogance showed itself again not long after.
I was sitting in my office at VCR when the accountant walked in holding an invoice from Advanstar. He asked if I had signed us up for the next show. I hadn’t. It turned out Advanstar had simply sent an invoice, assuming we’d pay and exhibit again.
I remember doing a literal face-palm and saying, “Why didn’t I think of that? Why bother calling people and selling when you can just invoice them?”
It was absurd, and unintentionally funny, but it also clarified something for me. The relationship-based way we sold in Canada mattered. Trust mattered. Context mattered. People mattered.
That job at VCR brought me back into an industry I had worked in during my early 20s, video production. It also marked the first of several returns to familiar ground over the years. Each return came with lessons, some humility, and usually a reminder that rebuilding isn’t a straight line.
Looking back now, that December 15 loss wasn’t an ending. It was another forced reset, one of many that shaped how I work, how I trust myself, and how I recover when things fall apart. At the time, it felt like failure. With distance, I can see it as training.
Rebuilding, it turns out, wasn’t something that happened to me.
It was something I was learning how to do.