Executive Presentations Class

Today was our Executive Presentations class for Leadership Development.  I'm kind of sad.  I was specially selected for the Leadership Development program because of my "high potential" to become a leader in our organization.  Now that I am moving on to the Finance department, I can no longer participate in these courses.  Bummer.  I really liked them and was really looking forward to the rest of them.

Our class today was good, but it was so warm in the room that I was having a hard time staying awake.  I don't sleep well when I travel, but last night's sleep was pretty good - must be the "Heavenly Bed by Westin" that they have here.  I don't know what it is...I think I was just really tired and so I slept well.

So, back to the class.  I think it is a really good class, but I am struggling tonight because I haven't had to develop a presentation deck for a LONG time - about 2 years and so when we were asked to bring a deck that we were working on or had done, I picked two that I thought would probably work.  However, mine were both tailored to a specific level of an audience far below the executive level so I really struggled in class today as to how to make the presentation meaningful enough to be considered remotely worthy of being presented to the "suits."  It seems like most other people's presentations were on track - they were giving updates on important issues and had great "outcome statements."  Me - I couldn't even write an outcome statement for my presentation.  I literally just sat there the whole class.  I worked on email when I should have been working on my presentation.  Even now, it's 9:30 PM and I should be working on my deck and executive summary page for tomorrow's class where we have to give the actual presentation, but I have done just about everything I can to avoid it (like getting caught up on a lot of blogging and watching American Idol).  I feel like crap.  I don't want to do anything with it.  I just want to go to bed and forget all about it.  But, I can't.  I am not going to give up that easily.  I will rework my presentation to fit an executive level audience - somehow.  I may end up being up all night to do it, but I will get it done.  Maybe that's why I turned the air down so low in this hotel room....to keep it freezing cold to keep me awake.  It is literally probably 55 degrees in here right now.  That's only 6 degrees warmer than it is outside right now!