Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of

executive coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace

the way you want to be perceived.

I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach,

and today we're talking about the focused executive.

Aaron admitted to being freaked out and she was angry with herself that she was.

Aaron was going to be a featured speaker at her company's upcoming user event. This was a yearly event that stretched over three

days. Thousands of people came from all over the globe.

Aaron's topic and her time slot were prime. She was feeling the pressure.

I met Aaron for the first time when the conference was ten weeks away.

She'd known for months she was going to be speaking. Now she was finalizing her

slides and carving out large blocks of what she wanted to say. When I asked how I could help her, she

burst like a dam. She wanted help with her slides, she wanted help with her content, she

worried about saying, um, and wanted help with that. She worried about sounding like a robot

if she rehearsed too much and wanted help with that. After a few more concerns she said and last but not

least I'd like help with not being so nervous. I'm usually not nervous but like I

say this conference has me freaked out.

What's got you freaked out exactly? I asked.

She burst out another list of concerns and then ended with,

and my boss is going to be there, and the whole team, if I blow this, I could

really set myself back, I could even get fired.

Really? I asked? You could? That seemed extreme to me. Well, no, I suppose not, she said. But it sure

...