After the success of our regional presentation, I was ready to focus on my finals and applications for summer jobs. Enactus had different ideas, however, and I quickly found myself getting pulled into presentations for the Enactus National Competition.
This was a new presentation that combined our previous two, so I was very comfortable with my old lines and very uncomfortable with my new ones. We spent hours practicing, but none of us could seem to get it memorized enough to work on timing and we were easily distracted by more important things, such as team shopping. Thankfully, we had a team retreat planned for the weekend before the competition, and the three of us presenters were using a significant portion of the time to memorize and practice lines (between the food and fun, of course!).
Unfortunately, one of the presenters quit after the retreat, leaving us other two (plus our new President and amazing videographer) to completely rework our lines, cues, and timed video.
In three days.
So we did! We didn’t sleep, we didn’t slack off, we ate and breathed our presentation. We were up late the night before and early day-of. Not once did we get through the presentation without stumbling in rehearsals, but we had a presentation despite the idea of withdrawing flashing through our minds.
The competition was held at home in Vancouver this year, so we were luckily able to eat well and rest in our own beds and practice as we fell asleep the night before. We met up for last-minute practice beforehand with the team and could barely get through our lines, and the next thing we knew we were in front of the judges.
We nailed it. Somehow we both remebered our lines and cues and got the timing right and lined everything up, and all of our struggling and frustrations were absolutely worth the pride I felt stepping out of the presentation room.
At the awards ceremony we were all very excited, especially after hearing there would be a new Spirit Award for teams that had smaller projects and presentations. We figured we had a shot at that, especially with the comments about our team spirit from previous years and competitions.
When we heard that we didn’t receive the Spirit Award we were all feeling disappointed, but we knew that we had worked as hard as we could have on it.
Then we heard our team being called. Because somehow, with our last-minute, much-too-short, never-rehearsed-right presentation, we had placed Runner Up in our category.
We were beyond elated as we ran onto the stage to get pur trophy and picture, and stayed that way when we went out to take more pictures and again as we all went home to sleep before watching the final rounds the next day.
To be cheesy but truthful, this presentation reminded me that with a little sweat and tears (and stress and teamwork), anything is possible. It changed the way I look at daunting, seemingly impossible tasks and has led me to many more opportunities that I would never have had the confidence to pursue without it.
