Bouncing back
Last week, I screwed up big-time.
I had a live interview that had been in the works for months. I worked hard to prepare for it. The person interviewing me worked hard to prepare for it. Not to mention the team behind the interview that handled everything that needed to happen in order for the interview to run smoothly. And then, on the day of the interview, I screwed it up.
The interview—which I did via livestream on my phone—was rough from the start. My phone froze several times, there were multiple delays on my end, and at one point, I couldn’t hear the interviewer asking me questions. Every minute that passed, our connection just kept getting worse.
In the middle of the interview, I had this sinking feeling. This is not going well, I thought. I am really screwing this up. I am so bummed. I feel so bad for the viewers. I feel so bad for the team watching this that worked so hard to put it together. I feel so bad for the person interviewing me, who is having to navigate my technical glitches. What the heck is wrong with my phone? How could I let this happen?!
Now, I guess it’s hard to prove whether what happened is really my fault. There was a thunderstorm outside, and maybe we had a bad connection because of something technical that was out of my control. But I felt like there were a lot of things I could have done to prevent what happened: I could have had a backup phone, for one. I could have asked my cell phone and internet providers to test my connection before the interview. I could have researched what to do in situations like this ahead of time. But I didn’t.
Right after the interview, I had to give a speech. As you can probably imagine, that was the last thing I wanted to do at the time. I was scared that maybe I would have another technical issue, and I still felt ashamed and sad—the opposite of how I want to feel when I give a speech. I didn’t have a choice, though. I had a 45-minute window to bounce back. So what did I do?
I called the interview team and apologized. I took responsibility for what happened and asked if there was anything I could do to make it up to them. They gave me so much grace. They didn’t make me feel bad, and they didn’t blame it on me. Instead, they were so kind and thanked me for finishing the interview despite the technical glitches. I still felt bad, but it was good to talk about it, and we even had a laugh.
Learning from what happened, I checked my connection for my computer and made a backup plan in case there was a technical issue for my speech. (Luckily, there was not.)
I began my speech, which was about resilience, by talking about how poorly my interview went and how I had to bounce back to be able to give the speech. It felt good to say it out loud, and it was a great way to start a speech about learning and getting back up again.
Here’s the thing: We all have moments like these. Moments where we don’t have the outcome we want. We have two choices: We can have a pity party and stay there. Or, we can have a small pity party, take ownership of what happened, identify where we could have done better so we can learn from it, and move on.
I know that in the grand scheme of things, there are worse problems than having an interview-gone-wrong. But no matter how small or insignificant the failure may seem—and no matter if the failure is in our control or not—it can still feel really bad. Big or small, in our control or not, we have to bounce back. We have to be able to get up again. Admitting how I felt out loud, taking ownership of my role in it, learning from it—these are the tried-and-true ways I always bounce back.
I hope you’ll think of this post the next time you find yourself in a similar position. May you always find the courage to get back up again!
Big hugs,
Kristen
(PS: If you struggle with bouncing back, I would suggest checking out our guide to building resilience. It’s the way we teach our people at Student Maid to get back up again!)
