You’re sitting in an interview for the dream company you want to work for. The 3rd interview round… …the one with a partner at the firm. She gives you a case study of a potential client. “What would you do to help this client?” she queries. You scrunch your face. Something doesn’t smell right. My whole body is screaming this company is rubbish, don’t take them on! But as you look around the fancy office, the plush seats, the slick walls, everything screams money. 90% of the office floor went to Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, Harvard. The brightest always come up with a solution and so you scramble at one. You give her a solution. She shakes her head. “You know what we did?” she teases. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We didn’t take that client on. And within that moment, my dreams of working at Bain & Co, one of the world’s best private equity firms shattered. All because I was too chicken-shit to say “No.” I learnt a hard (and valuable) lesson that day at 24. The power of sayin...