Ready to go. Feet planted. Shoulders loose. Jaw relaxed.
Wait, what?
I know it sounds like I was going to give a testimony about lifting or sports or whatever else Amit would have prepared me for, but what on earth does a relaxed jaw have to do with anything? Believe it or not, these are the physical cues that Amit drilled into me for a job interview of all things.
How did we get there? It started out looking like this as I wrapped up the final semester of my PhD:
Final round interview -> rejection. Final round interview -> rejection. (Repeat a few more times than I care to admit). I could only keep saying ‘unlucky’ so many times before it clearly wasn’t just a matter of luck. Much of this was after Amit had already trained me with some of his mantras:
‘Say what you need to say.’ ‘No forbidden words.’ ‘Sound like a _____ human.’ (You can fill in the blank with your imagination).
Even with all of this, something clearly was not working. I did some practice sessions with Amit and he pointed out something I never would have figured out myself: ‘You sound dismissive. You’re not making them want to work with you.’
Perhaps ironically, my natural instinct was to be dismissive (funny how that works). I had the credentials and I was answering the questions, what else did it matter? Instead of fighting me on that directly, Amit suggested I record myself practicing interview questions, camera and all. Good god, those first few recordings were some of the cringiest videos I have ever seen of myself, and I hated every second of it. The fidgeting, the forbidden word usage, all of it. But perhaps worst of all was the offhandedness. After finally being able to see it, I kept recording videos and definitely improved in some ways, but I could not figure out how to improve the tonal issue.
Cue Amit. People discuss the ‘mind-matter connection’ in order to improve lifting performance, but Amit’s brilliant solution was to hijack it in reverse. Don’t ask me how he figured this out (I don’t believe he even knows how he came up with it). I’m not even going to joke and say I would have figured this out on my own. The idea is: form a physical connection by planting your feet and keeping your shoulders relaxed. For whatever reason, perhaps to keep things aligned, this just naturally caused my jaw to slack a little bit. For me, this not only slowed my speech down but also made my speech warmer. The exact same practice answers went from fast and dismissive to relaxed. In my own recordings it was wild how slight physical tweaks made the same interview answers come off significantly better.
And yes, I did get the job. I (might) owe Amit a solid chunk of my salary for it.
Best,
Vinit
P.S. The interview was for a university postdoctoral research position. My hint for the university in question is ‘emeyetea’.