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<\/p>\nTroy Aikman, ASI\u2019s keynote speaker in Dallas, had a great excuse for running a couple minutes later than I expected to our show on Thursday: He was dropping his two young daughters off at school, something the 48-year-old dad does every day, no matter what.<\/p>\n
It says a lot when a guy worth an estimated $25 million drives his own car, runs his own errands and makes family a priority. The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback even told us his favorite pastime when he\u2019s not working as a FOX sportscaster is spending time with his daughters, aged 12 and 13.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be corny, but I hang out with my girls,\u201d he told the 600 people at the keynote at the ASI Show<\/em> Dallas, which ended Thursday after three days at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center,\u00a0attracting 485 exhibitors and 3,435 attendees from 49 states and 19 countries, with distributor attendance up about 4% over 2014.<\/p>\n All told, a record 20 companies chose Dallas to host their sales meetings, an increase of 15% over the previous year. The show also attracted 270 female-owned and 230 minority-owned businesses, which I was very happy to see.<\/p>\n Aikman was not what I expected. When we first met backstage in the green room he seemed low key and almost subdued. But once he got on stage, he really came to life, telling fascinating and often funny stories about growing up in California and Oklahoma, where his family raised cows, horses and chickens on 240 acres.<\/p>\n I always find that when you ask someone about their upbringing, you learn fascinating things. In Aikman\u2019s case, even though he took one of the most successful teams in the history of the game to the Super Bowl three times, he came off confident without being arrogant. That\u2019s an admirable trait a lot of successful people can\u2019t manage to pull off.<\/p>\n He also offered some insight into the Cowboys as an organization, and the tough but fair leadership of former Dallas Coach Jimmy Johnson, who told him, \u201cYou don\u2019t coach a player to what he is, you coach him to what you want him to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Aikman expected his teammates to know their roles and treat professional football like the job it is. \u201cPeople get fired for not knowing their assignments in the real world,\u201d he said. \u201cMy job as quarterback was to do whatever it takes to win.\u201d<\/p>\n Surprisingly, football wasn\u2019t Aikman\u2019s first choice. In high school, he also played baseball and basketball and only signed up for high school football so he wouldn’t disappoint his father. Even as he racked up success on the playing field in college and with the Cowboys he never stopped working hard.<\/p>\n Even his rookie season with the Dallas Cowboys, when the team won only a single game, taught him a valuable lesson. \u201cIt served me well later in life,\u201d said Aikman. \u201cI never forgot how hard it is to win. I never forgot what it was like to lose a game.\u201d<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, he said, \u201cMy career surpassed my wildest dreams. I can\u2019t complain at all.\u201d How many among us can say that \u2013 and mean it?<\/p>\n For complete coverage of the show, including blogs, photo and videos, visit www.asicentral.com<\/em><\/a> <\/em>and www.asishow.com<\/a><\/em>. And, search for our hashtag, #ASIDallas.<\/p>\n Upcoming 2015\u00a0ASI Shows<\/em><\/a> are\u00a0Long Beach<\/a> (March 24-26),\u00a0New York<\/a> (May 5-6) and\u00a0Chicago<\/a> (July 14-16).\u00a0To learn more about exhibiting or sponsorship opportunities for 2015, contact Karen DiTomasso, vice president of sales, at\u00a0kditomasso@asicentral.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Troy Aikman, ASI\u2019s keynote speaker in Dallas, had a great excuse for running a couple minutes later than I expected to our show on Thursday: He was dropping his two young daughters off at school, something the 48-year-old dad does every day, no matter what. It says a lot when a guy worth an estimated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asi-shows","category-news-about-asi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2819"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2831,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819\/revisions\/2831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}