When you begin learning a cool new skill, your mind is angled towards it very differently. It’s like getting your hands on a flashy new toy that you can’t seem to get enough of. But soon you’ve played a lot with this toy and then you slowly start losing interest, until one day a completely new context presents itself and you invent new ways to play with the same toy using your wild imagination.

I had no idea this would happen to me at 18. It had been 2 years since I had begun learning graphology and the results of my analysis had been giving me quite the steady dopamine kicks. Safe to say I had reached very close to feeling like a pro, until life decided to test me.

In my summer vacations I had traveled to Mumbai to meet my cousins. My mother thought it’d be a good idea for me to visit one of our old family friends who lived nearby, and the fact that I was promised my favorite food item at their home made it easy for me to say yes. So I went, but I took my cousin sister along. Small talk began with “Your parents told us you do this handwriting analysis thing, how interesting! Does that also tell the future? Can you predict it?” Wow, loaded questions. At 18 I wasn’t very sure of how to answer them. By then the aunt had pulled out a paper that she had diligently written on and urged me to analyze her writing. My favorite food item would have to wait, I thought. Okay, delayed gratification it is!

Informing everyone of the 1-1 analysis only code, we went into another room and I spent 10 minutes or so analyzing her writing. Little did I know that I was inviting an avalanche of clients. The aunt was so amazed and excited after her analysis that she insisted her husband to get his analysis done. She also rang the neighbor’s doorbell and told them to try it out. Before I knew it, word had spread across the building and I never got a chance to leave that room for the next 2 hours! My cousin had grasped the unpredictable madness of the evening and naturally slipped into the role of executive assistant, as she queued up people outside and sent them in one by one.

Life had decided to throw down the gauntlet to me and I had stepped up to the challenge. I was being pushed to invent new ways to play with my toy and for the most part I enjoyed rediscovering the magic of that toy. However, at the 2 hour mark I could feel my head throbbing with pain, not just from hunger but from the intense concentration + complexity of the entire challenge. Too much for my 18 year old mind. After the last analysis was done, my cousin walked in with a grin. Waving the samples at me she announced “25! In a row! Damn.” I was shocked – at the evening, at myself, at everything.

As I contemplated the entire experience, the aunt finally walked in with a mildly apologetic expression and my favorite food item. Ah, finally, the reward! It sure tasted like heaven after that feat. I ate in silence while making mental notes on the kind of professional boundaries such a profession should require, given the nature of the work and how I was feeling after this experience.

Years later when I founded Aatman Graphology, I ensured that a strict code of conduct supporting the analyst’s well-being was defined and infused into the training and curriculum. At any of our live events today, I regularly check on our analysts and encourage them to go for a short stroll or even a loo break, after they’ve analyzed 2-3 samples in a row. For consistent accuracy and uniqueness in analysis, this is critical. But more importantly, it also helps in raising awareness in the clients about the subject as it is common for people to minimize the scope of the mental work being put in by the analyst.

So, 25 in a row? Never again. But 25 broken down into 5 per two weeks, or even 5 per month? Now that’s something I definitely endorse and push students to do at Aatman. Great way to keep the rust off and build practice.