Developing Skills

I spent virtually my entire work day doing sales-related stuff.  We made a trip to Kerr-McGee, and while waiting to do my part, I decided to scrap the nifty little powerpoint presentation I had brought along and wing it (largely because of the orientation of the crowd, which I didn't know before I arrived).  So in about 15 minutes I mentally composed a structure for the talk/demo I planned to do, and then jumped right into it.  The results were outstanding.  I generated so much interest (and consequently ran over my time) that I've been invited back to spend an entire day with them.  

It was an interesting experience.  I am very good at changing things on the fly, and adapting, and today that was very good for our company.  However, on a personal level, it was slightly self-defeating.  One of the reasons I've agreed to be fairly high-profile with clients is so that I can work on my public presentation/speaking skills.  I used to be shy and to hate public engagement.  Now I don't, but it's not a well-developed skill, and these sorts of things are an opportunity to work on it.  So I prefer to go in to places with a decent plan ahead of time, so that I can concentrate more on delivery techniques and observing reactions, and less on actually figuring out what I'm trying to do substantively.  Today, I had to focus on the latter, but everything turned out fine.  

On top of that, I was dragging all day, so my evening was spent just being lazy:  reading odds and ends, answering some emails, playing on the net, and even flipping channels.

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