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Humans 101
The Difference Between Winning and Success
Nothing beats living in alignment with your values
My heart was pounding—not a good sign. I opened my mouth, and it felt chalky. I needed water, lots of it. My mind was freezing up too. The mouths of the four people interviewing me were moving, but I couldn’t process what they were saying; panic swallowed me up. I stumbled my way through the next 20 minutes. It couldn’t end soon enough.
When the disaster was over, one guy pulled me aside and asked me how I thought it went. How does terrible sound? I mumbled something about involving everyone in the discussion and some other nonsense. I asked him what he thought, and he said, “We’ll get back to you.”
Then he smiled and said, “Thanks for coming in, have some lunch before you go.” I thought I heard him say, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, you Loser,” but that was probably just another hallucination I invented along with the one that if I got this job, I’d be all set. I dragged myself to the airport and flew home, replaying the debacle over and over in my head. Weeks of preparation had just gone up in flames.
This little tragedy happened during the financial recession in 2010. I was laid off after four years with a startup and living on unemployment checks. I’d…
