When You Ace A Job Interview By Not Appearing For It – Moneycontrol.com
Not many people are lucky enough to get that one phone call that instantly propels their life and career on to a higher plane. Life coach Martha Beck did get it. But she told the caller, sorry, I’m going skiing.
The call was from Oprah Winfrey’s producer.
“They called all these experts on ‘how to destress your life’,” Beck told The Guardian recently. “The producer called me and I said: ‘Hmm. I can’t really talk to you because I’m going skiing.’ I love skiing. And I will go for what makes me happy over anyone and anything.”
What many would see as a juvenile and selfish decision made Beck, a Harvard-educated sociologist, stand out as someone who was frank and practised what she preached.
“The producer called back and said it was the only answer she got from all the experts that made her feel less stressed. So I went skiing anyway and, while I was there, I got the call from Oprah saying they wanted me on,” Beck said.
She went on to become Oprah’s personal life coach and, inevitably, a top-selling author.
What worked for Beck may not work for the rest. In most cases, it would be seen as irresponsible. But the incident shows that being yourself, within reason, can have a pay-off. If not always professionally, certainly in terms of personal happiness.
“Burn every bridge but truth,” Beck says. “If you want the job that will make you happy, get out of the job that is making you miserable. Scary. But it’s not going to happen any other way. If you need a relationship that will make you happy, get out of the relationship that is not making you happy. Most people think they’re all about happiness. But ask them to drop what doesn’t make them happy? Suddenly fear comes in.”
It’s not always fear. There are real issues that hold people back in unhappy jobs or relationships, such as financial responsibilities and young children.
Some of Beck’s advice may sound simplistic, but it’s not coming from someone who hasn’t seen adversity. Beck says she was sexually abused by her father, a devout Mormon. And her marriage ended when both she and her husband came out as gay. By that time they had three children. Beck was part of a loud dinner table on the face of it, the seventh of eight children, but for nearly 30 years she had no contact with her family.
Then, around six months ago, with the pandemic raging around the world, her younger sister got in touch.
“She has left the Mormon church and we’ve been texting every day for the last six months. It’s unbelievably sweet to have that love and friendship back,” Beck says. “If you are being honest and you are yourself with people, then they connect with you truly. So be true to yourself. Let yourself be seen as quirky or odd. Then the relationships you create with people will be real and solid and indestructible.”