The beach awaits

At my Tuesday morning networking group's evening event last night I noticed two big common denominators;

1.) everone was saying business was slow, and

2.) everyone was tan



No kidding. Even folks I had never before seen with anything resembling a little sunburn were beautifully brown. Here's what I'm thinkin'; this slowdown in business has been a great gift to those of us who know opportunity when we see it. We know that come September things will be slammin' busy, and we're taking advantage of these lazy days and precious gorgeous sunshine. (And a solid month of rain in June makes the sun even more irresistable.)



So slather on the sunscreen and get outside!! Before you know it, we'll be looking at Fall...

Fear and dissapointment; we are all our own worst critics.

Yesterday I had a chance to audition for a band. The drummer sent me a list of songs in advance, which I loaded on my shuffle, listened to, learned and practiced. I had the to-be-expected butterflies all day yesterday, but I've auditioned dozens of times, and usually my performance exceeds my practice. Not so yesterday. Granted, some of the songs were outside my vocal range, others outside my comfort range, but still it was a humbling experience.

It makes me think of some of my clients and their fear of public speaking and feelings of inadequacy about their own presentations. Do they feel like they're not measuring up, despite lots of positive feedback? Who's view is more accurate, the presenter's or the audience's?

I'm giving my performance yesterday a "C". For a life long ham, that's a dissapointing grade. I'll give it lots more practice and look into getting some help. And be way more sensitive to my clients' impressions of their presentation performance. I'll also try and measure the opinions of the other band members against my own assessment. We are, after all, our own worst critics.