Friday, May 18, 2012

Do I Belong Here?

These past couple of days I have been attending a conference that is being run by the private equity company that owns the company where I work.  The conference is incredible in its level of content and the quality of the presenters – it is arguably better than most paid conferences I have attended. 

The hard part for me is wondering if I fit here. 

I am one of only a handful of people attended that is not the senior most leaders at their company.  Pretty much the only reason that I’m here is that I’ve been asked to present on a topic of which I have some expertise.  Given the other business leaders, the equity partners, and some of their investors, I have little in common with the other attendees.  Between the names being dropped, the ownership of professional sports franchises, and the $50,000 a plate fundraiser than a number are attending immediately after the conference, I’m out of my element. 

And yesterday, ahead of my presentation, it intimidated the hell out of me. 

Fortunately, I was able to call my brother, a man with familiarity with this crowd, and he was able to get my head right.  The net result was a good presentation.  Heck, it was very good.  So while I may not have deserved to be here from a net worth standpoint, I did from a subject matter perspective. 

Will I ever be one of those guys?  Very, veryt doubtful.  But at least I know that I have the knowledge, skills, and abilities that they value. 

At the end of the day, I’m OK with that.  

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please feel free to include any thoughts you may have. Know, however, that kiddos might be reading this, so please keep the adult language to yourself. I know, for me to ask that language is clean is a stretch...

yeldogpat-20