Someone very close to me knows a lot about formulas.

Here’s one that he has taught me: Happiness = Expectations – Reality.

Yesterday turned out to be a very happy day. But I wasn’t expecting things to go that way…

You see months ago I was asked to present on the Art of Storytelling at the NASA IT Summit in San Francisco. I was floored and honored and so excited to be tapped.

And I prepared my slides and got them in to organizers weeks and weeks before the event. I like being organized. I like being very well prepared. It makes me feel confident and secure and calm.

People tell me I’m a good storyteller. I’m even lucky enough to have “Storyteller” in my title.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a secret to being a good storyteller. Practice.

I practice A LOT.

I practice and I practice and I refine and then I practice some more. Then I find the most cynical people I know (and sometimes I don’t have to look to far) :-) and I ask them to critque me and they give me honest, brutal feedback and then I refine and I change and I practice some more.

Here’s the thing with this NASA IT Summit. The timing of it turned out to be really hard. There was so much other work that was top priority that I just wasn’t able to carve out the time that I need in order to practice like I need to.

You see, I’ve got a HUGE workstream in my “day job” that my entire team has been working on for months. And it really started gaining momentum and becoming a bigger priority for the larger organization just as we were building to this NASA IT Summit.

<quick aside>

This project…. it’s the biggest thing I’ve done — that my team has ever done. I was on the calendar to present the work to CEO Staff this week. It’s going to the Board. It’s so hugely exciting.

</quick aside>

So needless to say I have been very, very, very busy.

Which means I did not have time to prepare and reherse in the way that I like to for the NASA IT Summit.

So it was with a sense of dread that I drove up to San Francisco yesterday morning, early early. It was cold and dreary and foggy and it mirrored my mood.

I drove up early to miss the traffic. So I sat in the Starbucks across the street from the Mariott and waited for the Summit to open for the day. The whole time I fretted over how I was going to get through this day. I didn’t feel prepared. I didn’t feel confident.

I was convinced I was going to bomb.

My day at the Summit had two parts. First I did this Live Call session where I had a discussion with remote pariticipants about the topic that I was discussing. Linda Skrocki, one of the most talented storytellers that I know, was there.  That went OK.

Then I went striaght into the session hall to present live to attendees. I was expecting really sparse attendance. I was the last speaker in the last session on the last day.

It was packed.

Steering Committee member Anita Tate Ibbott introduced me. She told me that it was the most full session she had seen all day. That made me even more anxious because I really didn’t feel confident. But I smiled and said “that’s fantastic” and tried to find some part of me deep inside that meant those words.

The room quiets down. Anita introduces me. I went up and took the stage.

Then something crazy and unexpected happened.

I got confident. I was calm. I felt prepared. I started telling a story about the Art of Storytelling. And people leaned into it. The audience was engaged. They asked awesome questions. At the end they applauded. And people came up afterwards to talk. It was a half hour after the session ended before I left the building.

You guys, it was just so awesome. It was such a great feeling.

Happinees = Expectations -Reality.

I was really happy.

Thanks for indulging me in sharing that story.

:-)

Mary