Have you been passed up for a job, not made the cut for the next round of interviews, lied to by the company that hired you regarding the nature of the job or situation of the company?
Any or all these situations can leave us with unwanted baggage. This baggage is emotional but nevertheless, there will be a price to pay for bringing the baggage on board.
How is There a Price to Pay?
Whether you consciously see it or not, it will stand in the way of opportunities. Emotional baggage can be obvious to the listener but not usually to the speaker.
Example:
The interviewer asks, “Why did you leave XYZ company?”
The interviewee responds with a 5-minute explanation as to why it was not his fault.
In a one-hour executive consultation, it is not uncommon to listen to 20 minutes of baggage before the executive even answers the question I asked. Many times, they forgot the question entirely.
What Can You Do?
Remember this chain of events that happens in our brain:
EVENT -> MEANING -> EMOTION -> THOUGHTS -> ACTION -> RESULT
You cannot change the event, but you can break the cycle in the MEANING that assign to it.
Is there an event causing you some emotional baggage?
- EVENT: I did not get the call back.
- MEANING: I was not good enough.
Try Assigning a New Meaning
Here are a few real reasons that I have observed over the past 25 years of working with executives as a Headhunter and an Executive Job Search Strategist.
- They lost their funding and are not going to fill the position.
- The CFO is being investigated and the company is about to be delisted.
- The job is waaaay more junior than they led you to believe because they were living in dreamland and hired an individual contributor.
- The hiring manager was quarantined in Aruba, and you will get the call back and get the job.
- They have no idea what they need, did hire the wrong person and the job will be open again in six months.
