Failure? or Sucess?

bygnoose

700 followers

4 years ago

Thecompany I worked for provided a leadership course designed for selectindividuals who had a desire to move into management. I was fortunateto have been selected to attend this training. The training was verygood, teaching many management concepts and presentation skills.There were 12 students in this course and on the day before our finalexam, we were told what that exam would be. We were to give a 5minute presentation on a topic of our choice. We were allowed to usepower point or visual aides as we desired. I chose to go with visualaides as I wasn't comfortable with power point in those days.

Mytopic was achieving a certain goal of mine, and my ladder of successto reach that goal. I had a drawing easel at my disposal to useduring the presentation. As I spoke, I would draw a portion of aladder as I explained each rung of the ladder I was climbing, eachrung being a step towards reaching my goal. My goal was obtaining mypilots license.

Dilema

Ihad one big hurdle to overcome. I was, and still am, totallypetrified of public speaking. Granted the class size was small, andover the course of the class, I had come to know my classmates andinstructors quite well and was comfortable in normal conversationsand interactions. Just the thought of standing in front of themthough, caused me great anxiety and fear. Anxiety over actuallygiving the presentation, and fear that I would fail and not pass thefinal.

Wehad 3 weeks to prepare. Plenty of time. I wrote my script and workedon timing and coordination with the drawing of the ladder to make aseamless presentation. I practiced at home in front of a mirror. Ipracticed in front of a camera and later watched the video to selfcritique. I practiced for my best friend, then my fiancee and thenboth of together. Later, I would practice in front of my coworkers inmy home office.

Show Time

Finallythe “Big Day” was at hand and I felt confident with the content Iwas going to provide. There was a problem, I was scared to death. Inthe back of the classroom next to the entry/exit door, we wereprovided coffee and various snacks, it was a casual environment.Anyway, I walked to the back to get a cup of coffee. The door openedand in walked one of our VP's. We shook hands (mine was very sweaty)said hello and in came a couple of directors followed by a couple ofupper level managers. Awe Crap!!Now what am I going to do? My heart rate went up and I begansweating, and I wasn't even presenting yet.

Ihad the second presentation of the day, so I tried to use that littlebit of time to settle down. Yeah right! My turn. I walk to the front,setup the easel, turned to face my audience. With sweat running downmy face, heart racing, breathing incredibly fast, I said in aterrified squeaky little voice . . . “Umm, Thank you for coming”and then I bolted for the door.

Inthe parking lot. Failure, good bye career, gloomy. I paced around andlit a cigarette. Yeah, I'm one of those people. To my utter surprise,the VP I mention came out and lit a cigarette, walked up to me andclapped his arm around my shoulder. He told me he understood what Ijust went through. Said he even had a similar experience. He alsotold me that its alright and that he was proud of me having made theattempt. We had a short conversation, and then went back inside. Istayed in the back of the room during the rest of the presentations.A few were actually very good, others not so good, but hey, everyonemade the attempt.

Failure? or Success?

Wheneveryone had their turn, the instructor called a 10 minute break.Everyone filed out. I stayed behind. I setup the easel again and whenthe break was over and everyone was seated, I apologized and beforeanyone could say a word, I dove into my presentation. I was sweatingprofusely, heart rate probably around 150 or so and you would havethought I had just run a marathon because I was breathing so fast. Igave my presentation. I fought through a shaky, stuttering highpitched little voice. I drew my ladder and I announced that, “Yes,I achieved my goal and success. Success because I managed to completethis presentation without passing out. And, oh yeah, by the way, Igot my license.”

Andthen I started crying, and in that instant, the room erupted withapplause. I was so overwhelmed that I just sat on the floor and criedas my classmates gathered round and gave me support. I passed thattest and the course and later went on to a successful career in management.

Ilearned that day that success comes in many different guises. Todayfor instance, is another success for me. I posted my first real Bloghere at WA and shared with you all a small piece of my life, and forme, that was hard to do. In my opinion, success can be measured inmany ways, achieving a a goal or completing a task for instance.Failure can also be measured in many ways. To not try a thing thatseems unreachable or undoable can be considered a failure. After all,we did go to the moon. Right?