Brain space and breathing

I have a group interview later. I'm intrigued. It could be a panel I face, or I could be part of a panel. But here is what I will not be doing today:

Googling "group interview" again.

Like anyone interviewing these days I'm already antsy and over-focused on "my game." But as I've told every member of my brood at one time or another, "your task isn't turning into someone worthwhile before the interview, your task is to get through thirty or sixty seconds of anxiety without crumpling to the floor because you've forgotten to breathe."

So I've prepared my speech, and can now discuss myself with poise in under two minutes without saying "and, um, let's see," and my outfit is on a hanger next to my pumps. If I Google anything else about "group interviews" I will learn about the "NUMBER ONE QUESTION YOU MUST BE PREPARED TO ANSWER BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE WILL BE" and it will be something I've somehow missed until now, and my insides will freeze, and I will have lost the opportunity to weave it into the speech I practice each morning after I drop Sam off and drive home pretending to be on Bluetooth.

No, I'm closing the book. No more cramming. I'm going to the treadmill where I will work on the presentation of me until it sing-aling-dings. Later, I'll go to my group interview and there will be some twenty-four year old there who's nervous and uncomfortable and I'll think of one of my children and forget about the treadmill and say what is truer than anything: You're better than you think you are before an interview. It will only take a moment or two for them to know it.

She'll get that job or maybe another one if she buys that, and so will I.

I have yet to see that kind of advice on the Debbie-Downer internet.