Life Lessons from the Elevator

Just the other day, a very good friend of mine once told me of an experience she had while traveling in Europe. She was staying in an old apartment building with a small but functional elevator. When she arrived, she took the elevator to her apartment on the fourth floor. Her host instructed her that whenever she took the elevator up to the fourth floor, she should press the button to send it back down to pick someone else.

This seemingly insignificant story reminded me of a story in my own past, where someone sent an elevator back down to pick me. When I was rounding up my Master’s program, I was searching for a job. My classmate at the time was in the final stages of his recruitment process with a leading organization in our field. He heard of another opening at the same organization and recommended me to the hiring team. A few months later, I began my new job at that organization. It’s no exaggeration to say that my classmate’s intervention changed the trajectory of my life, and I remain eternally grateful to him for sending his elevator back down to pick me up.

It is near impossible for anyone to attain success without support from other well-meaning individuals. All the biographies and memoirs of successful people suggest that they would not have been able to achieve their respective noble feats or successes without someone sending the elevator to pick them…