Last week I was scheduled to make a brief speech in front of an audience of about 200 people. Normally, I enjoy speaking in public but sometimes it can make me a bit anxious.

And this turned out to be one of those times.

I woke Friday morning feeling my nerves racing around in my belly like fiery little sparks. I consciously worked at taking my mind off the event, focusing instead on my immediate tasks.

I had emails to write, phone calls to make. I wasn’t scheduled to speak until the afternoon, leaving for the venue around 4 pm.

At about 2:00, I quickly glanced through my emails and spotted one from a coaching client I currently have. Since January, he and I have been working on resolving an issue with one of his employees.

The employee was not doing a satisfactory job. Instead of firing him in January, my client chose to see if things could change and had spoken with the man on several occasions as well as given him two formal reviews.

None of his interventions had worked and recently he’d let the employee go.

My client had copied me his response to a recent email from this disgruntled employee.

As I read both what the employee had written as well as my client’s reply, my entire insides roiled. His former employee had refused to take any responsibility for being fired, was blaming my client and choosing to be a victim.

I was appalled but worse began feeling a panic run up my throat.