Welcome back. I'm here to listen and reflect with you. What's on your mind today? There's no right way to start — just begin wherever feels natural.
I gave this big presentation today to the whole department — the quarterly results. I completely bombed it. I lost my place twice, my voice was shaking, and I could see people checking their phones. I just fell apart in front of everyone.
That sounds like a really unsettling experience — the kind where you're in the middle of it and every small thing feels amplified. When you say you "completely bombed it," what actually happened from start to finish?
I mean I got through it, technically. But I stumbled on the revenue slide, and my manager was in the front row. She had this expression — I could tell she was embarrassed for me. She probably thinks I'm incompetent now. I always freeze under pressure. I'm just not someone who can handle this kind of visibility.
I want to stay with something you said — that you got through it. Then you moved to your manager's expression, then to what she must be thinking, then to a conclusion about who you are as a person. That's a lot of ground covered in a few seconds. What do you actually know about her reaction, versus what you're filling in?
Honestly, I don't know what she was actually thinking. She asked a question at the end about the margin numbers — that could mean anything. I just immediately jumped to the worst interpretation. I always do that.
Notice that shift you just made — from "she probably thinks I'm incompetent" to "I don't actually know what she was thinking." That move, right there, is what we're working on. The first version is a story. The second version is honest. Which one do you want to act from?