The Girl Without A Face

I presented in two team meetings this morning. Back to back. Starting at 8am. This is something that I’ve been doing since my last role in management, but somehow I’m still doing now that I’m just a rep. Somehow it feels different now without the added pressure of my title there.

In the past, I would’ve started to get nervous on Friday afternoon. I would notice the meeting on my calendar, and then the fact that my presentation was approaching would implant itself in my head. It would then be a recurring thought throughout my weekend, it would pop in Saturday when I was trying to relax and enjoy my day off. Sunday would be the worst, especially Sunday evening. I would start to play on a loop everything that could go wrong in the upcoming meeting. My mind would go blank on what I was supposed to say, I continued to feel like a fraud, like I didn’t know anything. Especially in my role in management, moving into sales when I had no business there. Leading sales reps when I had never sold a thing myself. I had been an analyst, I had managed operations. But sales? Sales spoke a different language. I don’t think it’s lost on anyone that there are stereotypes there for a reason.

Now, of course I learned meeting 1:1 with my team of people, that these were just everyday, normal people like me. They had empathy, family, things they cared about. I suppose the shell some of them carried around was reserved for those they didn’t know. Or maybe for me they put on a show. I liked to tell myself I was really getting to know who they were underneath their sales persona. But when I went into these meetings I had to have a persona of my own, and this made me uncomfortable. I was more comfortable finding the soft spots in others and allowing them to relax into themselves. I was more comfortable 1:1 building trust, letting people know I had their backs. I was not comfortable with putting myself on display to get judged.

I started working on this back when I was still in management, mostly because it was so jarring that presenting in meetings was still one of the only things that could make me feel anxious after working on myself for so long. I started asking myself questions, I stopped taking myself so seriously. I started comforting myself like I would one of my employees. And I have to say it’s worked. I don’t know if the reduction in pressure because of my change in title has anything to do with it, but I knew I had these two meetings to present in this morning. It is similar material that I used to present in my last role, go around and talk about sending over leads. In other words, the dog and pony show. It crossed my mind Friday, but I told myself that was a Monday problem. It crossed my mind last night, but I kept reading. This morning I still hit snooze, deciding that it wasn’t necessary to wake up earlier. I dropped off my son. Got ready to music. Logged in with 11 minutes to spare. Felt a few butterflies in my stomach. I joined both meetings, both separate teams in NYC. All sales, all big personalities. I was the only girl on top of it. But instead of letting any of that get to my head, I felt confident. I was myself. I presented the material in a way that I felt comfortable with, made jokes as if I knew them. I’m from NY too after all, and I have a bit of an edge. It might be a boys club, but I have a rough and tumble dad. Anyways, I ended the calls and went to my sliding glass door to let my dog out and thought to myself how little impact that had on my day. How odd how something like that used to impact me so much and now it feels so insignificant to me. Is this growth? I don’t know, I’d like to think so. I just like to find differences in myself. From who I was to who I am now.