The Elephant on my Chest

Pune in August can be stunning! The mornings are usually misty with a slight drizzle. The fiery ball of gas rarely makes an appearance. But when it does, it's invigorating!

It was one such day. I woke up to a refreshing and enchanting sunrise with flowers bloomed to glory on my balcony garden. Morning never fails to bewitch me.

I feasted my eyes to the beauty of nature, took a deep breath, played my favourite instrumental music in the speaker, and made my usual, energizing Assam black tea.

While I took the first sip of the hot tea, I wanted to dive deep into the experience that I had recently. A truly enriching and elevating experience. An experience that changed my perspective.

A job interview.

The job interview process can be exhausting and tedious. Interviews that lays out a platform for you to climb every step and then drop you once you reach the top are the ones that hurt the most. And then, there is adversity and luck fighting against each other behind your interview background, something that you cannot ignore or let go of. Our conscience usually judges the experience of the interviews by the end outcome, whether we receive the offer from the organization or not. Interviews that don’t yield positive results are something that we wish to erase from our memory, but it stays with us for months to come.

Last year, I interviewed for a big company. An industry big shot interviewed me. One hour of the interview process and subsequently after that, I fed myself with Chicken Shawarma, a plate of Chicken Noodles and a bottle of coke. Later, I realized it was not me who was hungry, it was my nervousness and anxiety. The experience of going through that interview lodged in my memories, unfortunately not in the part that I wanted to. Over time, this experience unfolded into something giant, like an elephant, that sat on my chest. It squeezed my heart with its trunk every time I sat for an interview reminding me of Chicken Shawarma and Noodles, revealing the unpleasantness beneath and generating the pain of defeat over destiny.

A few weeks back, when I got the call to get interviewed with another big organization, my excitement knew no bounds, but at the same time, the squeezing of my heart reminded me of the presence of the elephant.

I knew what I had to do. I put together everything that I had in me. I planned for the interview, day and night, read questions, wrote answers, practised, practised, practised while sleeping, cooking and doing every other thing that I do, fighting off every fear that could take me a step back.

“Remember, either you win, or you learn”, I told that to myself.

On the day of the interview, back in my mind, it was the elephant against my courage.

“Today decides everything”, I told myself.

We talked for more than an hour, the interviewer and me. It started off great and by the end, I could feel my courage triumphing over that terrible elephant. It was a great conversation. Never during the interview, I felt like I was going through a hardship. She smiled, complimented and appreciated all the way and my nervousness and anxiety took a back foot. The answers came out natural and candid. To add to the icing on the cake, I smiled a lot, with no scene of emotional labour involved.

And I thought after the interview, “I want to be like her when I reach her position”.

She was kind enough to shortlist me for the next rounds and when the recruiter informed me it was positive and I was through to the next round of interviews, my courage took a step forward and was determined to dethrone the elephant forever.

The next interview rounds were pleasant, smooth, and enriching, the experiences of which left lasting impressions on me. Impressions that I would like to revisit now and then. I got to interact with some great personalities of the industry, learn new ideas and with every little success, my courage grew dominant over the elephant.

I think an interviewee seeks one smile from the interviewer throughout the entire process to break down that barrier of fear. They provided me with a bucket of smiles and encouragement. I couldn't be more grateful.

After the last round of interviews, I took a moment to engross and absorb the magnitude of emotions that I had experienced. The elephant was dethroned and kicked to some forgettable corner of my brain. Influenced and inspired, I crowned this interview journey of mine to the top of my experience.

The next few days went restless and my eagerness won’t let me sleep. I wondered where was the emotional intelligence when I needed it. I literally counted the minutes, hours and days, checked my mobile every other second for a call from the organization.

And then it came one afternoon. What happened after that is something that is still vague in my memories. I don’t recall having lunch, having a bath or doing anything that I was supposed to do. All I could remember was the elephant coming back to power and laughing at me.

“You thought you will win.”, it said

“Remember, either you win, or you learn,” I said stuttering.

“Better said than done, lady”, it snapped at me.

When the recruiter shared her feedback, she said I messed up in the three interviews of the lot that I thought went best and assessed had the great advantage of getting me through.

That very night, I sat with a glass of wine on my balcony, looking at the stars and thinking where I went wrong. While the elephant successfully adjusted to its previous position, my experience stood up and said, “ I choose to believe otherwise. I choose to trust that smile, politeness, transparency that made my interview journey so memorable. I choose to believe in people. I choose to believe that everything happens for a reason”

And with those bold words, there went the elephant packing up its things again and vacating the space for the greater good and forever. It took less than a minute for my courage to show up and shatter the months of unpleasantness. When the elephant was gone, I felt a huge burden lifting.

They say when you fail an interview, look at the positive part, try recalling the answers you gave, polish your skills, get better at what you do. Of course, that’s obvious. But it gave me more than that. It exposed me to something that I never thought existed.

There is a quote that says, “They may forget what you said - but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

I remember in one of the rounds, the interviewer told me that even failure is celebrated at their workplace and that they want to break the social norms of looking at people only by success and failure. They want to appreciate their efforts instead. I was amazed. I am someone who has been celebrating every failure in both personal and professional life over the last 5 years and never have I had the nerve to share this with anybody, wondering people will call me stupid.

As I ran through these chapters of memories, my conscience echoed from the back, “See, told you, either you win, or you learn.”

Of course, I put my heart and soul into the interviews and although it didn’t yield me the result that I wanted to, I have far greater reason to celebrate. Celebrate the defeat of the giant elephant. Eventually, this interview experience got stored in my memory box forever, this time in the part that I wanted it to.

Now, when I think why I had to go through that indifferent interview last year holding on to that grave feeling for months, I think had that not happened, I might not have been able to value this to such an extent.

Amazing how everything is connected!

 “Connect the dots looking backwards.”

On similar lines, I knew I will look back to that day and will connect it in future. As of then, I knew what I had to do. I had to grow, look for loopholes, enhance my abilities, polish my skills, expand my knowledge and overall increase my expertise. In short, be the best version of myself.

“Be a good person and everything else will fall into place.”

The sparrows chirping in the background brought me back to the real world. I opened my eyes and looked at the beautiful flowers in my garden, took the last sip of my black tea and opened the first page of “The Monk who sold his Ferrari”.