You know the dream you have where you are standing in front of an audience to speak to a group and you are totally unprepared?
Yeah that one. Well the happened to me today- sort of….
I was scheduled on Wednesday to speak at a local company kickoff meeting; a motivational start for the new year for the team. I had met in December with the CEO and we had signed a contract for me to speak on January 9 at 9:00 AM. I had sent the presentation before I left for my trip to Southeast Asia and I look forward to connecting again with the CEO when I returned to confirm everything.
Yesterday, I sent an email to the CEO yesterday to confirm Wednesday, Jan 9. He replied. Fast forward to today, Jan 8 and I get a call from the meeting organizer wanting to know where I was.
“I am in my home office”, I said.
“But you go on stage in 30 minutes”, she said.
“Isn’t that tomorrow?”, I said.
“No, it’s today. Right now!”, she said.
I checked the contract and it indeed reflected a speaking date of Jan 9 not Jan 8. At this point, I could have chosen to place blame or refused to come.
But as a professional, blame doesn’t matter when the job needs to get done. I said I would be there in 45 minutes. I jumped in the show, got dressed and called an Uber. I practiced the highlights of the presentation out loud in the 30 minute ride over.
I could have made a scene when I showed up with the CEO. I could have made a stink in front of the audience. I didn’t. There would have been no value to pointing out who had made a mistake. Five minutes after arriving, I was introduced and on stage.
I happy to report that the audience was very friendly and the presentation went well. The CEO was very happy.
Now when I have that dream about being up in front of people unprepared, it will be a little less scary.
2 week later update: I found a signed version of the contract. I was wrong and the client was right! We actually changed the date from an earlier version of the agreement! Ugh!
