Events: Being Let Go From a Position

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. Marcus Aurelius

Bad things happen to us all. The environment is bigger than we are. We must always deal with situations that we did not see coming. However, few events are as painful to our own internal sense of who we are as being let go from a position. Employers are not the only ones who can let us go. As business people, we can be let go by suppliers, dropped by customers, and abandoned by key employees. All of these events affect our positions in our own minds and the minds of others.

But a basic rule of strategic thinking is that what happens always matters less than how we respond to it. Sometimes, we can be let go through no fault of our own. Our employer’s business could be failing. This may not even be their fault. Government action or marketplace corrections can make a once healthy industry into a failing enterprise.

I say this as someone who has been fired at least a half dozen times, and I may be underestimating my failure rate. And all of those firings were justified because I was a poor fit long-term for the organization. Now, of course, I don’t regret being fired from any of those jobs. In each case, my being let go forced me to take a step forward that I had been avoiding.

Letting Go