She might be able to speak five languages and be the youngest ever candidate on “The Apprentice†but Ghazal can’t do the business presentation thing!
Ghazal dried in mid-presentation in the second week: freezing mid-presentation isn’t common but it’s not unknown either, sadly.
Usually people keep going and make a hash of it because of nerves, so it might be that having to actually stop altogether was the lesser of two evils. Of course, it would have been better for her not have not gone to pieces in the first place! I can’t see her making it all the way if she can’t handle the pressure of business presentations – they’re as unavoidable as taxes when you’re in business.
I’m guessing Ghazal’s problem was one of two common mistakes. It’s hard to tell from a TV programme but it looks at first sight as though Ghazal’s mind wasn’t on the right place. She may have prepared the presentation but she hadn’t prepared herself – you need to do both, obviously. Alternatively, it may be that she was thinking too much about the outcome of the presentation and what was riding on it: that means she got herself nervous in proportion to the possible gains/loss of the presentation, not in proportion to the task itself.
In short, she just wasn’t ready for it!
It’s not just about knowing the skills – you’ve got to have got them so far under your skin that you don’t think about them any more.
It’s like learning to walk – when you’re a toddler you’re consciously working on walking. Once you get older and better at it you forget about how to walk and think about where you’re walking. For poor Ghazal it all got too much because she was trying to do too much at once!
