“When preparation meets opportunity it turns into luck.” That’s been my lesson the past three long years. I’ve been trying to move out of my current role since 2019.

2019: I upskilled myself in a new area of cloud computing, secured a short term project in a different team, and was on track to take a full time role in Austin, until Covid happened and chased my cloud dream away, pun intended!

2020: went back to dealing with the pandemic before I put my hand up for a people-manager role within my own team. Went all the way to the final stage but lost out to another candidate. It was a huge blow. I was certain of getting the role but did not.

2021: felt like the world was closing around me. In my entire career, I had never faced this situation where I was not making a role. The happy-go-lucky guy, was not able to turn on the luck. 0/2.

My first job, I was a door-to-door salesman selling vacuum cleaners. The simple math was you had to knock a 100 doors everyday in order to sell 2-3 machines. I was a total failure as my model was selective. I would only do 10-15 doors a day and my conversion was abysmal. I quit in 3 months. Now I know why.

2022: I started my new year’s by applying for 5 roles in a single day. It somehow felt different. My daughter told me, “Papa, 2022 is going to be your year.” Over the next 3 months, I applied for 40 roles, I interviewed for 5, and eventually, I converted one role “Industry Practice Lead, New York”. Thirty-nine rejections. One “you-made-it” message. I fell down on my knees, touched my forehead to the ground and thanked my Maker. I called my mum, my wife and daughter and shared the news. It was a magical moment. I got lucky again.

In this journey, my definition of luck changed. So far, in my life, I was lucky to convert every chance into a new role. This time, I had to cast my net wide. My legacy method of going all-in-for-one-role did not work out. The insight came to me when my friend, who himself was in a similar journey told me that he had applied for 100 roles in the last 2 years! I was astounded. My mouth fell open. How did you manage so many rejections? But he did convert one, and he just started his new role in Austin this summer! That did it for me. Every rejection was going to be a step forward for me. Every interview I got rejected, I resolved to get to the next round with the next role. Every rejection would be a round of preparation in my boxing match. Round 40 was when I delivered the knock out punch. So back to redefining luck. In this journey, luck was no longer about outcome. In these 40 rounds, I got lucky in several areas. 1. The Mentors 2. The Coach 3. The Platform 4. The Good will

1. The Mentors: throughout the 40-round match, I had the fortune of being coached by amazing mentors. Each of these mentors are proven leaders. VPs, MDs, CxOs. They took time out of their busy schedules to spend hours with me during this journey. I was lucky to get these lessons:
Lesson 1: Be prepared for many NOs before you get your YES
Lesson 2: Think like a “swimming coach” if you want to lead a team. Strategy A: Supervise from a distance but never take your gaze away. Strategy B: Get in and get out to teach a specific stroke to a team member. Strategy C: Get ready to jump into the deep end if you think one of them is drowning
Lesson 3. Always create a 2-slide business plan for the role you are interviewing. Secret, only 1 out of the 5 interview candidates goes this extra distance.
Lesson 4: Your interview answers should move like a smooth CAR. C: Give the Context. A: Tell what Actions you took R: Results.

2. The Coach: while I had amazing mentors who taught me to treat this as a strategic journey, a long haul, my real breakthrough happened when I was lucky to get a tactical coach. It happened by accident. A fellow colleague, I mentioned above, was going through a similar journey of a 100 Round Boxing Match! My guru. My travails paled in front of his arduous journey. He was so kind that he simply took over my interview preparation. He slotted mock interview sessions for each of the roles. Each preparation session was broken into 3 parts. Part 1: I had to create a framework Part 2: he would challenge my framework and add a bunch of new thinking. Part 3: Make a 2-slider and send it off to the interviewer. We did this for 3 roles and I aced every single interview. I could feel the material difference of what a good prep can make to your performance. The role I eventually made, if I have to recollect the crucial interview, one of the questions asked me how to balance between long-term impact and short-term revenue gains. My answer was a direct lift-and-shift from my coaching conversation. “Media dollars are always allocated in 3-buckets of marketing channels: 1. Experimental 2. Efficient 3. Effective.” I remember the interviewer took notes while I was explaining this 3E framework. My guru, my Coach. I was lucky to get him.

3. The Platform: the fact that I was able to apply to 40 roles is a testament to the greatness of the Google job opportunity platform. It’s a great vantage point to sit at and cast as wide a net I could in to get my catch of the day. So, every Friday, I would get an alert about the new roles that got posted on the internal job site. I would spend an hour applying. I’m lucky to be at a company that gave me such a transparent opportunity platform.

4. The Good Will: Out of the 40 applications, 5 interview calls, 4 of them were from my existing network over the last 18 years at Google. Only 1 was from a new contact. Couple of points here. Knowing somebody does not mean you will get the job. Knowing somebody means that you get a closer look at the opportunity. Understand a little better. Get information about the business that will lead to better insights. I was lucky to get these insights as a result of the good will I had garnered over the years. One of the roles I got rejected was from a very dear friend of mine. It was Round 39. He called me, early morning this side of the world, late night his side, and delivered the news that I did not make it. Honestly, in that moment, I did not feel bad. I genuinely thanked him for the time he spent with me giving me a deeper insight into the business. He told me that I had aced the interview but the job went to somebody else who was also equally good. But I had earned his trust. That’s lucky for me.

So, here I’m. I’ve learned that when you multiply Preparation x Opportunity, it equals Luck. I would leave it incomplete if I did not share my fifth and final luck. The Family. Throughout this journey, for the last 3 years, there were two people who were seeing me go through these rejections every day. My daughter, and even more closely, my wife. They have been my anchors and also the wind under my sails. After a while, we stopped counting the rejections. Sit down, wipe your wounds. Get ready for the Next Round. And they have been my team, egging me on, and wiping my wounds. This team of two turned into an even bigger team of my mum, my sisters, my sister-in-law, and my brother-in-law. Everybody by now knew I was in this epic battle. And they kept cheering and finally when we told them about Round 40, there were a few wild dances that erupted across the different windows of the family video call. 🙂