On Time!

I pride myself for knowing the schedule and being on time. For the most part I know where I need to be and at what time any day of the week. I think it's part of what allows me to juggle the things that I do. If I were late everywhere I went I would lose a great deal of available time. Today though I lost it. Today I was late and not just on any day. We have these big meetings like any product company where we the product team shows those that need to know all the great things we have in store for a future season. Well that is what brings me to Panama and today was the opening day of big 5 day effort. I was scheduled to present a new concept that the company is spending a great deal of money on, during the big 2 hour opening. All the country representatives are here, the top management from the region etc. It's a big deal.

My morning started early enough. 3:30am to be exact but that's what traveling half-way around the world does to you. I took some time to wake up and then started practicing my pitch. I had roughly 5 minutes to talk and I spent 90 minutes in practice.

Next was a run with Craig. We met in the lobby at 7:00. We had an unscheduled conference call at 7:00 that lasted until 7:15. We then headed out the door. We found this great park to run in that is a 4K super hilly loop. It takes us 16 minutes to get there. The run felt easy, much easier than yesterday. We do a lap of the Park and then say we have time let's do another one. So we casually do the lap and then run the 16 minutes back to the hotel. The run was 65 minutes in total and it's now 8:20. We were cutting in close by this point but we would rush through the shower crab a cab and get to the office with roughly 1/2 hour to spare. I take a cold shower to speed the recovery and grab all the things I need for the day. I'm walking to breakfast and my phone rings. It's Rodrigo my partner here in Panama.

"Dave, where are you, Charlie just started. Will you be here to pitch"

"Shit Rodrigo, it starts at 10:00 when did the meeting time change?"

"Dave, it has always been at 8:30, where are you"

"Getting breakfast, we'll do our best to get there, besides, you know this stuff, you can do the pitch"

So I call Craig, we quickly buy a couple things to eat and grab the cab. It's now 8:50 and 20 minutes into the presentation. Luckily there is no traffic. We walk into the office at 9:00. I quietly walk into the presentation where the head of the region Charlie is presenting. I feel like a total idiot. This is not like me and I've let them down. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 15 minutes later I try to make up for my stupidity by putting on a good presentation. I try to stay calm and not be too cute. Good feedback from the group made the sting hurt a bit less but I'm still mad at myself. That's so unlike me. The only good thing that came from it was the practice. 90 minutes of practice for 5 minutes of pitch was the right thing to do.

Tomorrow the pitch is 10:00. I've checked twice already.

It's a good life....

Dave