Convention time again!

There is something about a Natural Products Convention. Even if you have been in the field for three decades, the excitement leading up to the first day of the event does get you excited. For many of us that are blessed to be in an industry we love, and get to grow within and along with the industry, there is a level of satisfaction like in no other field, or non I know of. It is the excitement of learning about new products, or new delivery systems or being brought up to speed with all of the literature we are overwhelmed with on the show floors. Our bags ever filling with samples and literature, business cards changing hands like playing cards at a poker table, and all the while looking up the row to see what is coming next.

The days are long, brain cells will be lost, new ones will be stimulated and yet we think about what we are doing after the show as we plan our strategy for the next day in the trenches on the floor. I personally have been attending for over thirty years, and for me, although some faces have changes, new philosophies have been adopted, and the standing of the industry has changed, one thing stays the same, knowledge, and the pursuit of more of it for us to pass along.

I never get tired of the articles, and industry literature. The good, the bad and sometimes the ugly articles, all of which keep us informed and alert as well as prepared so we may address them as questions come up, and they always do.

I am always glad to see how companies that were at one time a small Mom and Pop are now huge companies offering a plethora of products for the consumer. Some companies that started out with a niche item or a solid one department philosophy have stuck to their guns and now do it better than anyone in the industry.

There is never boredom in this field, and if you are able to keep the passion and the hunger for knowledge, you will never ever run out of ways to feed that hunger and your mind at the same time.

So as the convention winds down and your feet are tired, you are over stuffed from sampling every food group available and eating a good amount every day, you start to think WOW, I survived another show. But, with the over stuff bags of samples, sore feet and what seems to surely be the first signs of being brain dead as you could not possibly process one more item of information, you are still excited about the next show on the calendar. In what other field are you able to have this much excitement, stimulating knowledge, continual updating and improving and all in a category this important, Our Great Health!