When a abrupt Zoom firing ended years of dedication, it triggered an unexpected realization: Some professional endings are actually the ultimate career rescue.
EXPERT OPINION BY LEIGH ELENA HENDERSON, FOUNDER, HRMANIFESTO
Nobody tells you that being fired might be the best thing that ever happens to you. Because in the moment, it doesn’t feel that way.
It feels like failure. Like rejection. Like the professional equivalent of being told you weren’t enough. Your mind goes to the practical things—the income, the insurance, the explanation you’ll have to give—and underneath all of it is something quieter and harder to name. An identity crisis. Because for a lot of us, what we do and who we are have become dangerously entangled.
When the job ends, it can feel like
So when the job ends, it can feel like something in us ends with it.
It doesn’t. But perspective is everything.
Refreshed leadership advice from CEO Stephanie Mehta
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What I felt when it happened to me
I was fired during a five-minute Zoom call. Five minutes. After years of showing up, giving everything, and trying to hold together an environment that was quietly coming apart. And when it was over—when the call ended and I was sitting alone in the silence of what had just happened—I felt something I wasn’t expecting.
Relief.
Real, physical, unmistakable relief. Not devastation. Not panic. Relief. And that relief told me something important: I had already known, somewhere beneath all the effort and the loyalty and the convincing myself it could still get better, that this was the right ending. I just hadn’t been the one brave enough to choose it.
Source: www.inc.com
