Unbreakable Mind & Body

I Crashed a Car on My Way to An Interview

• Tiana Gonzalez • Episode 28

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In 2007, I crashed a borrowed car on my way to a job interview.

What started as a simple car swap to avoid a traffic ticket quickly spiraled into disaster when I hydroplaned over construction runoff and slammed into a concrete divider. The wrecked car was just the beginning—my boyfriend's reaction revealed more about our relationship than months of dating had. 

Despite the chaos, I formulated a plan: get the damaged car home, change clothes, catch a train to the city, and somehow pull myself together for this crucial interview. Not only did I make it on time, but when I shared my morning's adventure with my interviewers, I unknowingly demonstrated exactly the kind of quick thinking and resilience they were looking for. Before I even made it home that evening, they called with a job offer.

This pivotal moment marked the beginning of a challenging three-year period that included working for half my predecessor's salary, supporting my mother through cancer, and remaining in a relationship that was slowly draining my spirit. Like waves repeatedly crashing over someone struggling to reach shore, each new challenge threatened to pull me under. 

The greatest lesson? Learning to slow down rather than rushing headlong into chaos. 


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Disclaimer: This show is for education and entertainment purposes only. This is not intended as a replacement for therapy. Please seek out the help of a professional to assist you with your specific situation.


Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Unbreakable Mind and Body podcast. I am your host, tiana Gonzalez, a multi-passionate, creative storyteller and entrepreneur with a fierce love for movement. This is our space for powerful stories and actionable strategies to help you build mental resilience and elevate your self-care practice. Together, we will unlock the tools that you need to create an unbreakable mind and body. Welcome back to the show. I am your host, tiana, and I want to invite you to listen to a story. Recently on Instagram, I asked my community if they would be interested in hearing a story and the unanimous answer was yes. So I'm going to share this story here on the podcast. I will probably tell it on Instagram as well. If you're interested in following me, you can check the show notes to find my Instagram handle. And then, if you'd like to take it even a step further and get a little more personal with me, I have a broadcast channel there called Done is Better Than Perfect, which is also the title of my most downloaded podcast episode to date, which I love. So it's 2007. And, by the way, by the end of this story, you'll realize why it's appropriate for this show because it's perfect, it's 2007.

Speaker 1:

I go to Miami, I'm with friends, I get an email. This company wants to interview me, so I scheduled the interview for the Friday of the week that I'm returning. I think I came back to New York on a Sunday or Monday, worked the rest of the week and then I called out sick that Friday. Now I switched cars with my boyfriend at the time because I had a cracked taillight on my car and I didn't want to drive it into the city and risk getting pulled over or having somebody stop me at a traffic light, pull me over and give me a ticket. That would have been a pretty costly ticket for me at the time me a ticket. That would have been a pretty costly ticket for me at the time. So instead I asked my boyfriend if we could switch cars and what I didn't know was that all four of the tires in his car or on his car needed to be replaced. They were in really bad shape.

Speaker 1:

Now I spent the night at his house, so in the morning he could just take my car and go to his job and I could take his car and go home and let myself get ready and then drive into the city, and on my way home there was some construction and there was, for some reason, an active stream of water going across the exit ramp and when I flew over it, probably going way too fast, I lost control of the car. It hydroplaned and crashed right into the concrete divider. Thank God there was no one right behind me and I didn't hurt anyone else or any property, just the car. I was able to pull it over into this like get off the ramp, pull it into the first section. That was clear so I could take a look at it. The car was in really bad shape. I called the boyfriend. I told him I had just been in a car accident. I told him I was okay, but I asked him to please come to my house. I said I'm so sorry, but can you please just come to my house? I'm really shaken up by this whole thing. I crawl from the spot where I stopped doing something along the lines of 15 to 20 miles per hour to get the car into my driveway.

Speaker 1:

I believe the interview was in the afternoon, maybe right around lunchtime or around 1 pm, and so I had a little bit of time, but I had to sort things out. This was the first time I actually got to see this guy's true colors, because he asked me more about the car than he did if I was okay. It wasn't until he soaked in the damage to the car that he then realized wait a minute like I could have been really badly hurt and he wanted to make sure that I was okay and it's called an accident because it's an accident, right. So I had to think quick. I wanted to get to the job interview Now. I had planned a second interview earlier that day, but it was not as important. The one in the afternoon was more of a priority. The one in the morning was very sloppily put together and I didn't have any issues calling the person who coordinated it and saying I'm so sorry, I was in a car accident this morning. I'll have to reschedule. Unfortunately I can't make it, and whether she thought I was full of shit or not, I didn't really give a shit. I had to take care of things.

Speaker 1:

So now the boyfriend leaves, goes to work, I'm figuring out the train schedule. I call a taxi to take a taxi to the train. I take a train into the city. I get to the interview on time. The whole train ride. I'm sweating because I'm going through the crash from the adrenaline rush, but I pull it together. I go to the job interview, I knock it out the park.

Speaker 1:

I met with two different people my department head, my future. I mean, obviously I took the job, so it was my future department head, and also the client. Obviously I took the job, so it was my future department head and also the client. And I actually tell them towards the end of the interview that I was in an accident that morning and you know, they kind of looked totally shocked and in disbelief. But they asked me you know what happened and how did I handle it? And as I'm telling them the story, leaving out some details, but just saying, yeah, I was in a pretty bad car accident. I think the car's going to be totaled, I'm not really sure yet. It's not very drivable, but I was able to get it to my driveway and I had to shift gears and all sorts of things and make it happen, change my footwear, because I wasn't driving anymore. I was going to be putting on quite a number of steps. I needed to change my footwear to something more comfortable, use a different bag, just all that strategy. And what I didn't realize was, in me telling that story, I was showing them how I was able to think quick in a moment of adversity, to pivot, to come up with another strategy to solve a problem and to still get the job done, and it was a great thing.

Speaker 1:

I get on the train, I leave. I thank them for the interview. I get on the train, you know, I leave, I thank them for the interview. I get on the train. I'm on my way home and I get a call. They wanted to make an offer. They made an offer, I accepted it and I cried. I was so proud of myself in that moment that I was able to switch gears so quickly, to get gritty, to just come up with a solution. There was nothing that was going to stop me from getting to that job interview and it was eye-opening to see the boyfriend's reaction. It was really telling how he was more concerned with his property as opposed to me and my well-being.

Speaker 1:

And side note, this is the same guy I spoke about a couple of episodes ago where I talked about. You know, just trust your gut when something doesn't feel right. This is the person that I I call the one. He's the one who the end of that relationship broke me in half. It cracked me open. It didn't really break me and destroy me, but it cracked my heart wide open because I chose to deep dive into healing and I chose to make myself a better version and work through a lot of my stored trauma and bad habits and the darker sides of myself. I don't want to call it good and bad, because even when we have a side of ourselves or aspects of ourselves that we're not necessarily proud of, they still contribute to who we are today. It's like a yin and a yang. You can't have light without dark. They have to coexist.

Speaker 1:

So this relationship was the one where I always felt like something was off. I felt disrespected. I felt that I wasn't being supported fully. It was more of a situation where this person kept me around because he didn't want me to be with anyone else that's really what it was all about but he wasn't in love with me, not the way I needed to be loved at that time. So this car accident was really one of the first things that opened my eyes to some of our problems, and we had only been dating a couple of months at this point. So I gaslit myself and I told myself to not make a big deal out of it. You see, I had always been made out to be a monster and to be compared to my mother. So anytime that I experienced a moment where I felt I was being sharp or severe or extreme or flying off the handle or I had a temper, I thought I was overreacting and I needed to ground myself and I needed to check myself. So there was always a lot of self-regulation. However, why was I feeling that way is really what the question was, and I didn't have the tools and I was not equipped to navigate those things at that time. So now I embark on this new chapter in my life.

Speaker 1:

Where I'm starting this new job? It's in the city. The client was Lehman Brothers, which is super high profile client, and this was in the spring of 2007, when everyone was being approved for a mortgage. They were hiring like crazy. They needed more commercial real estate property managers, and I started at a salary that was way below what I was worth In fact, I discovered it later on but I was making half of what my predecessor was making. They were taking advantage of me because I was younger and I didn't know how to advocate for myself. Yet another set of tools that I didn't have in my arsenal at the time, you know, I didn't realize it and, plus, I wasn't thinking logically. I probably should have taken my time, but I had just been in this traumatic car accident earlier that same day and, oh, by the way, I also had to go bartend that night. I also had to go bartend that night. So this is a perfect example of where it was just always go, go, go for me.

Speaker 1:

I slept at my boyfriend's house the night before I was rushing to get home. I was, you know, rushing to figure out how, a solution to get me to get the car into my driveway, which I wound up just driving it very slowly with the hazard lights on on the highway to get home and then rearrange my plans, change my footwear, change the bag I was going to use, make sure my makeup wasn't bleeding all over the collar of the white shirt on the train because I was sweating profusely, pulling it together, getting my head right, trying to be relaxed, answering the questions. Well, of course, I didn't think about negotiating anything. I was so worried about all these other things and sorting through my emotions from the accident, plus the lack of care and empathy that I felt that it was missing from my boyfriend at the time. So, yeah, no, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I was just go, go, go, go go.

Speaker 1:

Now you've heard me say on this show before what's the rush? And here's a perfect example where had somebody told me it's okay to slow down a little bit? Think about things, think this through. I could have made better choices for myself at the time, but I was always going a hundred miles an hour. And now, because I had been in this accident and I felt guilt, I gave my boyfriend my car and I was stressed, figuring out how I was going to get from here to there and everywhere I needed to bartend because I needed that cash. So it was this perfect storm of high stress and not being able to sit and think and make a better decision for myself. Was it his fault that he needed new tires and he didn't tell me that beforehand? I don't know. Was it my fault because I was driving fast and I lost control of the car? Yeah, that's my fault. I own that and I did get the most important thing done, which was to make sure that I was okay and then to get to that job interview, and I'm super proud that I was offered the job before I even got home that they were impressed with me but it cost me a lot, and what that value is I'm not sure. But that was just the beginning of a then tumultuous period in my personal life and an insane period of stress in my professional life.

Speaker 1:

So now I went into the city. Once. I did my two weeks at my previous job and I started with this new one. I was commuting into the city every day, dressing up, answering emails on the weekends on my BlackBerry if I had to, taking calls 24-7, dealing with New York City and all of the rules and regulations, public utility companies, the law enforcement Whenever we had to do construction there was always a lot of permitting involved and the clients, these high net worth clients. I was in this shitty relationship. My mom got diagnosed with cancer in July of that same year. I was with this bomb guy and not getting paid what I'm worth and being super stressed out all the time.

Speaker 1:

Am I proud of myself for what I did on the day of the car accident? Yes, am I proud of myself for getting through all of those challenges that then came? It was almost like a ripple effect. It was like being stuck in the water at the beach and you're trying to swim out and another wave just comes and crashes right on top of you. And then you get a little bit closer to the shore, you're almost out and just as you take another step, here comes a big wave, the undertow, sucks you back in and then crashes right on your head, and that is literally what my life felt like for about three years after the day of that car accident. It was really, really tough, but I am so proud of myself for being able to knuckle through it and to work my way out of having to always be in survival mode work my way out of having to always be in survival mode.

Speaker 1:

Now I know better. Now, if I see this chaotic situation, instead of running towards it, I'm going to stop and slow down and start asking myself some questions Like does this need to be taken care of? Right, this? Second Am I making a decision from a sound place or am I being emotional? You know, for example, I'm on this extreme diet for a couple more days. I've been doing it for about five weeks almost six now, for a very specific reason, and I'm almost at the finish line and I got to tell you.

Speaker 1:

I have caught myself a few times thinking things or wanting to say something to a coworker or a client or an acquaintance and I'll just say you know what? No, I'm not thinking clearly right now. I am very hungry, I'm cranky and I'm tired. Doesn't need to be addressed right now. And I'm tired Doesn't need to be addressed right now. So I hope you enjoyed this little story of mine. It is a moment, a snip in my life where I'm very proud of the girl that handled her business and I'm also wishful that I won't ever have to be in that place again, because I'll have a better support system and I feel more equipped to take care of myself first before taking care of all of these other things. Thank you for being here. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the show. You can hit the follow button and then. You enjoyed this episode. Please follow the show. You can hit the follow button and then you'll get notified whenever a new episode drops. I'll catch you on the next one.