Public Speaking is Scary and Exciting

Phew! What a crazy week. Sorry I was MIA last week, I was in Colorado for a summit with all of my colleagues in Vail Resorts sales and marketing. It was a really fun week filled with BBQ on a ranch, an awards ceremony and plenty of team-building activities.

Part of the week also involved a presentation give by yours truly in front of about 200 of my peers. EEK!

About two months ago I was selected to lead a special project within a program we have called “Vail Resorts Vision.” Basically people from around the company come together to work on a business challenge that is outside their normal focus.

After two months of meetings, planning, research and building our presentation, “Team Tahoe” as we called ourselves took the stage. Right before kicking off our presentation I was pretty nervous….like sweating under my clothes nervous (gross I know).

It didn’t help that the video in our presentation introducing our team didn’t work – despite the fact that I tested it literally seconds before going on the stage. What is it with public speaking and technical difficulties??

After some awkward apologies, I finally got the video to work. Based on the laughs, I think it was worth the wait.

The Tahoe Bunch from Heavenly Mountain on Vimeo.

From there things went really smoothly. I even tried to work in a few lame jokes that my very polite colleagues laughed at. Thanks for that guys.

When it was all over I had an amazing sense of accomplishment. This is super dorky, but it’s an awesome feeling when you take on a big challenge at work, put in a lot of hours on it and finish the project on a high note. I guess you could say I was sort of…. proud of myself?

It’s that feeling that makes me love my job. As many times as I’ve thought – not having to work all day every day would be great – I also know that a lot of my self-esteem, confidence and identity is created through my 9-5. I’m not sure I could ever give that up.

 

A Cross to Bear

This weekend we attended 5 pm pass at St. Francis of Assisi here in Incline. Where we live in Tahoe is dubbed “Income Village” for the amount of wealthy, retired or second-home owners who live here. Meaning, we’re usually the youngest people at mass by about 50 years.

The priest’s homily this week was about the crosses we all have to bear. I love this priest because he always makes a point to have his homily’s be interactive…not just him preaching to us. For this particular one, he asked us all to close our eyes and think of the biggest cross we bear in our lives.

I held my eyes closed tight and thought….

And thought….

And …. um …. I couldn’t think of anything!

In an instant I opened my eyes and looked around at all the older members of the community with their eyes closed and through their body language I could tell that nearly all of them were thinking about something difficult that had happened to them in their lives. I imagined things like deceased spouses, lost relationships with children, debt, illness.

At first I felt relieved that I have been blessed to not have experienced tragedy in my life. My loved ones are happy and healthy. My financial situation is good. I live a life I truly enjoy every day.

But that relief slowly started to evolve into fear and last night (three days after mass), my anxiety hit hard. I couldn’t help having an overwhelming feeling that all my happiness is just temporary and some great tragedy is lurking somewhere in my future ready to change my life forever. That years from now I’ll look back on all my happy blog posts from this time in my life and think “if I had only known.”

I tried to console myself by remembering what the priest said after we all reflected on our crosses … that to truly know Christ, we have to know suffering. But to be honest, I don’t want to go through something like losing someone I love or getting sick or being unhappy.

And even worse, I hate that I feel like suffering is going to be an inevitable part of my life. It’s like it’s a big, scary, nasty question mark just looming out there waiting to ruin everything.

It makes me wonder … is it possible to live a life of happiness and avoid heartbreak? Or are we all destined to experience tragedy?

And if so, is there any way to prepare myself for what may happen?

(Sorry for the depressing post. I just can’t stop thinking about this…)

Update on Life Lately

Well, no word yet on the house. Our offer is still sitting with the banks. *sigh*

My mind hasn’t really had much time to wander to day dreams of decorating a new home – we’ve been so busy the past 10 days! First we went to Napa to spend the weekend with my brother, his wife, my sister and her husband. We stayed in this super cool “treehouse” (how I think of it) we found on VRBO.com.

Napa House for Rent

We did some wine tasting, but Luke and I were careful not to overdo it early in the day because that Saturday afternoon, we went to a food and wine festival called Cochon Heritage Fire. This event was like a dream for us. All our favorite things – relaxing open greenery, 25 chefs putting on a culinary showcase, tons of different types of meat/fish/vegetarian dishes (okay, mostly meat) and vintage wines from some of our favorites like Failla and Chase Family Cellars.

We stuffed ourselves silly and laid in the grass for awhile. It was a lovely evening with my partner in crime.

After Napa, it was back to work for a couple days before my whole family arrived in Lake Tahoe! I have been planning this Cron family reunion since this winter and the anticipation was boiling over. I couldn’t wait until they arrived!

And then….two days before my family got here, I came down with the flu. Ugh! So typical, right?

After a day in bed, I rallied just in time for everyone to arrive. I’m so glad I felt better, because we packed a lot of fun into four days!

Sugar Pine Point BeachStand Up Paddle Board Lake TahoeLone Eagle Grille

And in a blink of an eye, the trip was over and everyone left to go home. I must admit I felt pretty deflated once everyone was gone. I love my life in Tahoe, but being with my family always makes me feel homesick to be closer to where they are.

Luckily, Luke had a mild case of my flu on Sunday, so I was able to talk him into sitting on the couch and watching movies with me all day (Is it terrible to capitalize on your husband not feeling well??). Normally after a half hour on the couch, he’s tapping his leg and fiddling with his phone until he can’t take it anymore, so I relish the times when I can get him to slow down and just be with me. :)

After that whirlwind week and a half, I’m looking forward to some time with just my guy & me and our quiet, relaxed life by the lake.