I survived my presentation today. I actually wasn't as nervous as I had thought I would be. I know a big part of that was that I knew that many of my friends were praying for me this morning, praying for me to feel calm and confident, for my presentation to be clear. And it was!

I ended up driving to the city instead of taking the train so I could focus on something other than the nervousness. Then when I got to the conference, I was busy getting ready and then suddenly I was being introduced.

When I talked to my mom last night, I was telling her that people had advised me to picture the audience in their underwear. I've heard this before and I hate it - I can't do that, first of all, and second of all, it might make things worse. I thought it was a better technique to look for a friendly face or two in the audience and speak to them. I was able to do that and it really helped me to relax and feel confident in my talk. I was actually somewhat surprised when I was finished and the other speaker was up. After her talk, we had the participants break into groups and discuss some case studies we had developed and then we each took turns engaging them with some questions. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and a couple people even came up at the end to thank us.

I think the best part of the day was when I got back to work. I know that sounds weird but wait for the rest...the way our new offices are set up, we can see right out to the parking lot. We have a back door that we use and as I came around, all three of my colleagues were waiting for me! I didn't even have the key in the door before they were opening it, asking how I did, how things went, etc. They said they were going to text message me an encouraging message but didn't want my phone ringing during my presentation. It was just so sweet that they cared that much - it really made my day!