What To Do When You're Flustered

Here's a story something that happened and I’m still shaking it off!

I had been working for months to make the interview with Tanya Ramos happen. I’m co-founding a project that is incredibly interwoven with her work at Pencils of Promise, the mission she stands for, so I wanted to start building a relationship with Tanya as a way to begin exploring opportunities for collaboration and mutual support. The call was booked as the culmination of a ton of hard work, accomplishing a big goal that I had set, and I lost sleep the night before out of excitement and fear that I wouldn’t wake up in time for the interview.

Well as luck would have it, I converted the time zones incorrectly into my calendar and was late for the interview! I immediately felt dejected and so disappointed in myself, that I could squander an opportunity like this that I’d worked so hard for, and was very critical of myself. I started scrambling trying to make everything work and needless to say, was really flustered. But then I thought about the situation and what my ideal response is: Breathe, be calm you can’t change the past, have faith that she’ll understand, and focus on what you can do moving forward. Taking a moment to be mindful and intentional allowed me to refocus, appease her concerns, and conduct the interview as scheduled! It was mission accomplished, the interview was incredible and it represents something I’m really passionate about. And it all was possible because I managed my emotions, had faith in the process, and chose to take action!