BRX Pro Tip: Ways to Reframe Getting Fired
Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips, Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, it’s no secret in our organization with many of the folks that I hang out with, that in my earlier career in the management consulting arena, I was fired a-half-a-dozen times by some of the most prestigious training and development, change management consulting firms on the planet. I thought I handled it reasonably well, but how would you approach getting fired?
Lee Kantor: Getting fired, it’s never fun, but it’s one of those things that’s almost a rite of passage for everybody. You’re going to get fired at some point in time in your career, if you’re doing any type of interesting work. And it could feel for some people, they take this as some sort of a setback. And it can definitely feel like a setback, I don’t want to minimize that. But if you can reframe the experience, you can really turn it into an opportunity for growth and transformation rather than a setback.
Lee Kantor: So, number one, instead of viewing being fired as an ending, just look at it as a chance to reevaluate your career path and maybe pursue new opportunities. Number two, detach your worth from your work. Recognize your value as a person is not tied to your job or your job title.
Lee Kantor: And number three, trust that better opportunities are ahead. Believe that being fired is not the end. It’s just the end of a chapter. And your career journey is long, so it might be the end of this job, it might be the end of this project, but it’s not the end of your career.
Lee Kantor: And having a more optimistic attitude about this helps shift that focus from loss to possibility. It’s definitely challenging, but if you can reframe it to being an opportunity for growth and self-reflection and a new beginning, then maybe you can make this into a positive turning point rather than the end of something, by focusing in on gratitude, learning from your mistakes, reassessing your goals, lean into being resilient. If you can do all those things, I think you can move forward confidently towards a better opportunity.
