About Getting Fired
By: Chengeer Lee
Tags: Laid Off, Unemployment, Life Lessons, Job Loss, Being Fired

“Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

~ Steve Jobs

Not everyone is destined to create his own business. Most of us have to go through a period of life working for someone which is associated with the risk of getting fired. I had the first-hand experience of losing my job and I know there is no gentle way of walking through this. I would like to talk about conclusions that can be drawn from this situation, and potential action points for the following steps.

#1. Walk away first.

If you see it’s coming, be the first one to make a move. Don’t wait until you get handed your walking papers. Meet your employer and ask to terminate the contract, try to negotiate the conditions of termination. Hold your ground, polite but unflinching. Your ego will hurt, but you will save your precious time and dignity.

#2. Be professional, not emotional.

Firing you is not personal, it is business. All decisions that your boss makes are done for what he thinks is the good of the company. Occasionally, bad blood can also be a reason, in that case, follow the so-called “no asshole” rule. There are two sides to it. One: never tolerate assholes in your life. Second: don’t be one.

#3. You are the eye of a hurricane.

The extent of the area of responsibility you take for the events that occur in your life reflects your scope as a person. Incidents that seem to be either coincidental or external in nature, you beget from within. You are the attractor — the epicenter of the hurricane in the middle of which you stand. You are the one who injects it with energy and you are the one with the power to extinguish it. Remember, the eye of a hurricane is the calmest part of the storm. You’ve got this.

#4. Listen to the messages of the spirit.

“Getting fired is nature’s way to telling you had the wrong job in the first place.”

~ Hal Lancaster.

Getting fired is a sign. The crisis that happened is a message from the Universe: “Something is not working. Where are you going? Where does this path take you?”

Ignoring the signs is a good way to end up at the wrong destination.

Have you ever felt like you are knocking the wrong doors? Like you are destined for a better life wherein your soul does not protest because you don’t force it through the torture of dull labor? Do you still feel the pulsation of a dream under your heart — the dream you abandoned choosing instead to cling on to stability? Recognize yourself in these words? Having such thoughts is a clear indicator that you need a change. Listen to the deep waters of your soul.

Trust your vibes. Energy doesn’t lie.

#5. Start with a clean slate.

Let me tell you a secret: you wouldn’t be reading this book right now if one day I haven’t lost my job. Yes, I got fired. I was stuck in a rut suffering from severe burnout, and one fine day I got dismissed.

It was bad. I got soft. I was sleeping till noon, waking up totally demotivated and pandered to resentment. I lost my major source of income in a snap of fingers, it was a quake experience that threatened my lifestyle. The version of the future that I was envisioning suddenly shattered hanging my mind in the nebulous emptiness. I screwed up.

The idleness was deadly. I had to do something and I had to do it fast. Serendipity came to the rescue. My friend, my co-founder, saw something in me — something I failed to see in myself. He told me I should write. This advice has changed my life.

Writing became both my consolation and my therapy. Words that were flowing through me began to heal me. I used writing as a tool to bring order to my thoughts, calm the inner chaos, and build up momentum. With time writing fixed my life. Things fell into places, I landed a new job, but by that time I entered it I was a changed man. I have discovered my new power.

Getting fired is a beautiful experience if you succeed to model your perception in a way that will let you tap into all that negative energy and channel it into new becoming. Find your true calling. Walking-ticket is an opportunity to reinvent yourself — an opportunity in the disguise of adversity.

When the wants of your mind and your soul are misaligned the Universe sends you a sign. Listen closely. The potential for accomplishing great deeds that dwells inside you will riot if it risks remaining nothing else but potential. Don’t nickel and dime your time here.