What has been the biggest choke in your life?
Has there ever been a time when you thought you had something in the bag only to massively choke in the end? Not just failures, but a failure that was completely unexpected?
I'm talking study to the point of full confidence for a test in college/CFA/CPA and end up failing, train for a marathon and boink in the 25th mile, crush a job interview but accidentally do something incredibly stupid on your way out the door.
I like this question. I never had a great answer for the "what's been your biggest mistake / failure" interview question, and I still don't.
At the risk of sounding MonacoMonkey-esque, I've always hoped (wistfully) to develop an interesting but not actually super-meaningful disease for use in college apps, etc. but I never did. Phrasing it poorly but you know what I mean.
At the end of a great interview: interviewer "thank you" me "you too"
Choking is not an unexpected failure. An unexpected failure or defeat is a blindside. A choke is usually the result of a decrease in performance due to pressure.
Unexpectedly failing an exam is calling being unprepared. It could be a blindside if it was significantly harder than you thought and to choke would be to see a question and know that you knew the answer and it is on the tip of your mind, but you just can't seem to pull it together. Choking is typically a result of anxiety from the pressure, which creates mental blocks in the mind.
Choking is possible in sports as well. I have definitely choked in tennis more than once. The last time it cost me $1000 for a set on a bet against a friend. Basically, my forehand has so much spin on it that there is little room for error. I was out of practice and started shanking shots on my forehand and instead of going for it sometimes, I choked. I'd push it just to get the ball across the court. Sucks.
You can't really choke in a marathon on the 25th mile. Choking isn't really a part of running. You can run out of gas, slow down, or get injured, but that's about it.
Crushing a job interview and doing something stupid on the way out isn't choking either. To choke in an interview would be knowing the answers to the questions asked, but not being able to recall them due to pressure/anxiety.
Sorry could you link me to the definition of a choke? Thanks for explaining.
No, no, Jimmy choking is something you do when you eat too fast. As I'm crushing Mr. Moorin's windpipe with my watch chain, what I'm doing is actually referred to as strangling.
You can definitely choke in running. For instance, if you look in track and field, Obea Moore, the youth world record holder in the 400m, choked in most of his big events simply due to the pressure on him, hence why he never made it big in his adulthood and why literally no one knows him. But mostly this happens to competitive athletes and most likely the only kind of choking during a marathon we'll be doing is on the snacks waiting at the finish line.
uhhhh yeah I agree. But, the dude said choking while running a marathon and you're talking 400m.
Sure, explosive starts are an integral part to short distance sprints, especially track and field.
I started to type 'except short distances' in the original post, but then erased it as I didn't think anyone would go there, but this is WSO, and you did, and you're right. So, bravo.
Went all in on my first real business and nearly ended up broke. Worked out extremely well but we literally had like 2 to 3 months of cash in the bank to keep the company going.
How'd you turn things around?
Basically, one of my closest friends had launched a company that did $1M+ the first year with under 20k - 30k into it and I figured it was easy for me to do too. So I tried to monetize a community I owned. Turns out our USP wasn't as strong as we thought it was. We did $1M+ in sales but the model wasn't very scalable and margins sucked. We put our last $15,000/$20,000 into a company that was sort of an offshoot of the main one and it blew up. Net out more than half a million the first year. The offshoot cash cow was a total stroke of luck too. Someone died in a freak accident, literally a tree fell on him, and I was the second choice as a partner to assemble offshoot co. Life's weird.
Would love to hear more.
Oh, you mean a Hail Mary.........
This morning my Global Head emailed us to say take a half day in lieu of the 4th and I sent back “Thanks, I hope you’re having a great vacation.” I confused her with another colleague who was on vacation... she’s at a family members funeral.
I had a morning interview on campus for an Ivy League b-school (not H/W though). At the end, they asked how long I was sticking around town and what I was up to that afternoon.
"Oh, I can't stay long, I have to get back to the city...I have a three-hour interview tomorrow morning with (my old firm) for (a better role than my first stint there)." Oops.
I got waitlisted and admissions said they "questioned my commitment to b-school" specifically because I was interviewing for a new role that might have rendered b-school redundant.
I usually interview very well and get offered what I'm interviewing for. My only explanation for those two interviews (I did so-so technicals wise on the second one and didn't get that offer, either) was having two potentially career-changing interviews on consecutive days and having to travel to both of them and go on less-than-ideal sleep. I had really short notice on the scheduling of both and I had to fly across the country back to NYC the day before the campus interview. My flight was delayed for five hours, so I got to bed really late and was on maybe five hours of sleep. Still no excuse, though. I dropped the ball on letting that info slip.
If could do it all over, I would have truncated my trip and flown back a day earlier to prep for the first interview. I also would have tried to make up something with the recruiter for the second interview to get it pushed back a day. I did mention the possibility of pushing it back shortly after I had initially agreed to it, but she came back with "You're interviewing with two partners and two directors and this is the time they've set aside for you."
Such is life. You live, learn, and do better the next time.
Pretty nice of them to actually give you specific feedback on their decision
I got drunk and lost my juul once.
Vaping is for tween girls, eastern Europeans, and homosexuals.
I dribbled out the ball to drain the shotclock because I though we were winning, turns out it was only a tie. Screwed over my firm big time.
I can only imagine this happening.
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