Hardship is not something that anyone can experience like you, regardless as to how much they can relate. There are times in life when you just get your ass handed to you. I am in one of those times now and I have learned that these are the times that you have to triple check your double check.

If you’re in the situation where you are out of work, or working on fixing a broken heart, understand that there is a real science behind what’s happening in your brain. Let’s be clear, I am NOT a psychologist or neuroscientist. I am a tech professional who has studied the profession of Social Engineering for situational awareness around cybersecurity.

What malicious social engineers do is use a technique called amygdala hijacking. What this means in common language is that professional (bad) social engineers get people confused emotionally by presenting them with a false emergency that requires them to act immediately. If you have stress in your life, you are putting yourself in this condition.

There was a time when I was dealing with a lot of hardship in my life and my daily stress was so high that I was essentially walking around in a constant state of “fight or flight” and confused. During this time I accidentally scheduled meetings for the wrong days at the right times. This only increased my stress.

What I came away from this knowing is that when you are stressed, make sure you confirm and reconfirm. Do not have too many places where you schedule your time. Have ONE calendar that you use, even if that means putting things from one to another and having two notifications.

Hardships in life are not something we can avoid, but take time to slow the hectic down to a pace you can manage and give yourself some slack. If you miss “the opportunity of a lifetime” then you have just learned the lesson of a lifetime. Dust yourself off and own the mistake. If there is no recovering, then start working on the next opportunity of a lifetime.