Presentation Day

I had my Presentation Day yesterday. What that means is that I handed in the first draft version of my business plan and gave a ten minute presentation to a panel of business people.

I got up early because I still needed to finish printing my business plan. I have it structured as a separate document for each section so I needed to open each document, print it, and put all the sections together. And get it stapled - my stapler won't punch through it because there are too many pages. For my next version I am going to structure it as a master document with sub-documents.

I had set my alarm to go off at 4am so I'd have enough time to do all my last minute preparations in the morning before going off to my 9am presentation.

My alarm went off promptly at 4am and woke me. Anguish! Cruel cruel universe! I did not want to do this - I just went to bed four hours before that!

I finally hauled myself out of bed. Threw the dress shirt I wanted to wear into the dryer with a sheet of Bounce. Bachelor-style dry-cleaning. Went off to take my shower.

It was sooooo nice to be in the shower. Warm. Wet. Comforting. I felt like standing under the falling water for, like, half an hour. I didn't.

I knew I needed to be thinking about my presentation, getting mentally prepared, but I was still processing my thoughts and feelings from the previous day. No time for that! I have a job to do and I need to prepare for it!

By 7:30 I was done printing my business plan and finished collating my handouts. The Executive Summary needs more work but that was all the time I had for it.

I took a moment to update my Facebook status to wish everyone in my OSEB class well with their presentations. My morning magic chuckle - watching the Muppets "Manna manna" video that one of my classmates had linked on her Facebook. Then off to McDonalds for breakfast.

McDonalds - the breakfast of champions. And of busy entrepreneurs.

By 10:47 I was done, presentation, question and answer, feedback and all. Done! It went by quickly; it went well. One of the panelists complemented my presentation skills and said that with the right tools I would have no trouble selling. My three times at Twenty First Century Leadership and my experience on the core team in MDI have paid off; this is where I have practiced my presentation style.

After it was over I went to Booster Juice and treated myself to a celebratory smoothie.

The last ten weeks have gone by quickly. Tomorrow is my last day in Phase III. I have a workshop in the morning, Introduction to Phase IV, and in the afternoon we have our class graduation party. Yipee!