Grace Under Pressure

One of my clients, whose name happens to be Grace, found herself unable to land in Bangkok because of violent monsoon weather. She’d been sent from New York by her firm to make a presentation to civic and business leaders in Thailand for a contract worth tens of millions of dollars. By the time her plane landed two days late, other firms had made their pitches. The Thai officials had pretty much made up their minds and were reluctant to see her. Finally, a committee agreed to meet with her, for twenty minutes only, in a hotel lobby.

Any hope of a proper presentation went out the window. She knew she had to abandon her original game plan. Forget the deck and the PowerPoint. Forget the carefully groomed script. Now it was ...

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