Flying out via Luton. Travel center says my ticket will be available to collect at the office on Tuesday. It's not. Wednesday I am at the client site in Hammersmith. Travel center says the ticket once printed is non-refundable, non-shiftable, non-changable and is now printed and sitting in office. Get mail room to courier ticket to me in Hammersmith. Boss comes out of meeting and says we are taking different flight to Cork via Heathrow and driving to Waterford. Get new tickets via Cork, Luton ticket still sits in my jacket pocket.
Spend 20 mins working in airport. Spend 20 mins working in plane. Get in car and spend 40 mins discussing presentation with boss. I'm bricking myself for this presentation tomorrow. Car is too hot and looking at a laptop is making me feel ill. Car is clients car and throwing up would be a bad idea. Spend rest of journey thinking how stupid I am. Wonder if my friends know. Smart guys could handle this. Smart guys could do decent presentations. Remember I did decent presentations on Sainsbury's. Remember that was mostly my bosses work. Still freaking out.
Check in hotel. Go for dinner with Boss and Bosses Boss. Groot Bass en Klein Bass.
Unpack suitcase. Lid of vitamin c pills has come off. Suitcase dusted in fine white powser. Great. Now everything looks like it's covered in charlie.
Spend 2 hours working. Am still bricking myself. Don't look forward to tomorrow. Got to get 19 hours work done before 11am.
About to go to sleep. Assume the last 2 hours of thumping tunes pumping into my room from the "Bowery Bar and Nightclub" (directly opposite my room) is unlikely to stop. Nor will the chatter of drunk girls and the bouncer. Briefly consider going and asking them to turn it down, as I have a presentation in the morning. Look out window. The drunks girls look like that could thump me, never mind the bouncer.
Sigh.
1. pixeldiva
The trick is to keep breathing.
You’ll be fine. You know your stuff and your bosses wouldn’t have you along if they didn’t think you could do it.
2. Matthew
“Yes, mister airport security guard, it’s vitamin C, I swear. Taste it. Yay-o doesn’t taste like oranges. Seriously.”.
3. Karen
Earplugs. All hotels should supply them.
4. Saltation
yes, mark of the business traveller is you ALWAYS carry earplugs. the best are from http://hearos.com : the most comfortable AND the most effective. brilliant.
the TRICK is you do ONE major presentation, while too bloody superoverfcukoffexhausted to be able to do more than robot your way through.
afterwards, you’ll suddenly robotjolt and go: wait. that… that was dead easy. i just did this talk and movement stuff, and there happened to be people watching me. from that moment on, you will be able to do ANY presentation to ANY number of people with NO presn stress.
to minimise your perfectionism stress, practice practice practice the day before the particular timings and words and pauses. then do something else for the night and do a v.v.fast runthru in the hotelroom to remind you. then just head down/off to the big room and when it’s your turn: just do it.