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.