Sometimes you work really hard on a presentation, and once it’s over, you realize you shouldn’t have put so much effort into it.
I spent 12 hours at work the previous day and another 2 hours at home that night–not to mention the countless hours before that–prepping for a half hour presentation delivered via webcam at work yesterday. I got little sleep for 2 nights since I had to use all possible waking hours preparing slides and practicing. It was exhausting; I was exhausted. And it was all over in 30 minutes. Actually, 25 minutes, 44 seconds, and 25 whatever-the-next-increment-on-a-stopwatch-is, to be exact. It seemed like it could very easily turn into one of those high effort, low reward situations that tend to accompany work projects.
But then, something weird happened. Before I even made it back to my desk after the presentation, someone told me I did a great job. After I got back to my desk, the head of my department came over to tell me the same thing. I got an email a few minutes later from someone delivering a similar sentiment, and before the day was over, at least 3 other people also gave me that message.
I’m not trying to brag, since you already know my calling is apparently to be a professional public speaker, and all I did was read my notes off a piece of paper while looking into a webcam. But either I was really good at using the webcam, or the serious movie-star-grade light they put into the tiny room I presented from made me look really good on camera.
Either way, if you need me to type stuff onto a piece of paper and then read it for you, I come highly recommended.
A New Thing Every Day 