THERE are phases in life when you are surrounded by trouble and nothing seems to work. All you know as the momentum builds up is that something has to give somewhere and things will cool down again. After all,a situation of stress cannot continue forever.

However,while the experience lasts,how do you hold yourself together.Intense,stressful situations test your true grit and strength of character.And that of those close to you the best and closest of relationships have been known to give away under stress.For,we change under pressure and our actions,body language and decisions are all different from what they are in normal times.Even the coolest of people seem to lose their ability to stay calm when faced with the slightest challenge to the smooth running of their lives.

The seemingly happygo-lucky Modi,who was matching steps with Bollywood stars just a few days ago,is tense and seems on the verge of a breakdown.Quite natural.We can all empathise with them since we have all been in that boat,in varying degrees,sometime or the other.And here,for Modi,his entire life,career and reputation built painstakingly over several years,seem to be collapsing around their ears like a pack of cards! How can one not be affected The challenge however would be to retain your demeanour and cool particularly when under the most pressure.Experience proves that stress can have an acute negative impact on health.Increased weight,high blood pressure,heart problems,migraines,mood swings,irritability,and insomnia you name it and stress gives it! Did you know that when stressed out,you not just tend to overeat but also eat all the wrong stuff And that stress can be so overpowering that a study shows men even change their definition of which woman they find attractive when under acute stress they end up choosing the wrong woman!

Wouldnt it be nice if,secure in the knowledge that even the worst of times cannot last forever and knowing the ill-effects of tension,we could distance ourselves from a stressful situation and watch life like a bystander Difficult to imagine,but not impossible.

If like a yogi,you could but detach yourself from life and watch yourself from a distance you would be able to escape the resultant forces that shape your life.Though at the epicenter of the activity,you would be able to rise above and stay unmoved and unfazed.Sounds improbable Try it.With every impossible situation,when we are under deep stress,there comes a moment when we finally give in and go with the flow.The moment when we realise that no amount of struggle or effort is going to help us and its better to give in and conserve energy.And at that point,you find yourself enter an area of stillness.The chatter is cut out and a quiet delight is born.And that is the point at which you start living a carefree life

There is a host of interviewing advice out there for job candidates. Much of the advice concerns how to circumvent interview questions that might require the job candidate to give out information he or she doesn’t want to. Of course, this means that interviewers will have to step up their game to circumvent the circumventers.

This is what getting negative looks like in the behavioral interviewing scene:

–”That’s good (referring to an answer), but it doesn’t really answer my question. Tell me….”

–”I need more detail about what you did in the situation. What you’re giving me is very high level, I need to dig into the details with you.”

–”That happened a long time ago. Do you have a similar experience that’s happened in the last year?”

–”Most of the examples you are giving me are team oriented. We value teams here, but for purposes of you being a candidate, I need to know what you did, not what the team did. Focus me on what you did.”

–”That’s a great example with a good outcome. Now tell me about a situation where you used a similar strategy but it didn’t work out for you.”

–”Tell me about a time where you’ve been fired or taken off a project due to your performance.”

–”I’m struggling to understand the details of what you’ve done in these situations. Once you tell me about a scenario, start giving me deep, deep details of what you did, not what the team did, not what you usually would do in that situation, but what you actually did.”

–”You keep telling me what you usually do in situations. I’m not interested in hypotheticals, I’m interested in what you have actually done.”

Some of these sound a little harsh to me — I’m picturing the job candidate in a blindfold with a cigarette dangling from his lips — but managers might find a varation of these suggestions useful.