Once a year (whether I need it or not), I accompany my wife for some Christmas shopping. I would rather milk a cobra.

She shops; I buy. My philosophy… why bother to go to look? My dear wife will go into 17 stores to price 100 items for a purchase she might make three years from now. For Christine, it's all about the "thrill of the kill." For me… it's about the kill. Buy the darn thing and leave. Period!

In order to make deposits into the favor bank, I will occasionally do things that are totally out of character for me. Recently my better half was down at the entrance to our subdivision decorating for the holiday season. I don't help her decorate my own home; why would I decorate the front area?

I suppose a twang of guilt which is normally a foreign emotion to yours truly, overtook me. I stopped to ask her and her team if they needed a supervisor for the job. I should have just kept on driving. Instead, I got out of my car and began to hang garland and lights over the entrance.

Since I'm pretty much an idiot with anything mechanical, my buddy Paul down the street showed me how to plug in the lights. Duh! We then proceeded to collect the various beer bottles and other trash that seems to collect in the bushes that are in the islands at the entrance area.

Attention morons: the entrance to the subdivision is not the St. Cloud dump! We collected three dozen beer bottles, most of which were Corona bottles, which can be returned for money! Must have been a terrific party!

Long story short…if you don't make some deposits into the "favor bank" you can never expect to make withdrawals at a later date. So my obligatory neighborhood community work and annual shopping trip with my wife are complete for the season.

My wife is fond of saying that the neighbors don't even know she's married because I'm never around. I didn't realize I had to check in with the neighbors.

When my kids were younger, she would sarcastically hang the brochure with my picture on it on the back door and would tell the kids "If a guy comes to the door looking like this… let him in… he's your dad!"

Yes, I travel a lot. I have a trip scheduled to give a series of speeches to an international insurance symposium in Tehran, Iran next year. Go figure; you wouldn't think that Iran would be a destination for 1,000 insurance professionals from around the world.

Speaking in the Middle East has its challenges. For instance, if your passport has a stamp from Israel in it, many countries will not permit you to enter their borders, prompting many of my speaker friends to have multiple passports to enter certain countries.

There are passport issues, visa issues, international phone number issues and, in some countries, security issues. My brother-in-law worked abroad for Fluor-Daniel and in many countries often had to travel with an armed body guard.

When he worked in Russia, the biggest challenge was finding a chicken that he didn't have to butcher and dress before eating. His biggest challenge in the Far East was getting from point A to point B.

My road warrior friends in the National Speakers Association and the Global Speakers Federation chuckle at my concerns. They are used to dealing with these issues. Many literally make their living speaking in venues abroad because the pay is much better, and people in many of those countries are starved for knowledge and most appreciative for your efforts to share with them.

I certainly found that to be the case whether speaking in India, Europe or other parts of the world. The most surprising thing I have learned lately is the way my female speaker friends are treated in some of the same cultures that don't treat their native women very well.

Many of my female colleagues have had exuberant praise for their hosts in those countries. When you make a deposit into the favor bank, you have some currency with which to negotiate, whether it's in your neighborhood or in a neighborhood in Iran.