Here’s why losing your job is the best thing that can happen to you

Back in 2014 I was fired from a job I thought was my ‘dream job’.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been ‘fired’. It had also happened to me 8 years earlier.

Losing my job twice in my first 10 years of working sounds like a nightmare. And it was… at the time. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. 

And looking back on both those instances, I am able to see that losing my job was the best thing that happened to me. 

Why, you might ask? 

Let me tell you….

The First Time

The first time I was fired I was 23. I’d only been living in the UK for a year. And the job I had taken when I arrived in London really was my ‘starter’ job. It wasn’t the type of job I moved 18,000 km across the world for. 

The problem is, I got comfortable in my ‘starter’ job. I stopped dreaming of the jobs I REALLY came to London to pursue. And I just, well, settled.

One year in, my boss fired me without warning. 

And I was forced to scrambled. 

2 months later, I was working in the Marketing team of Nike London (EXACTLY the type of job I moved 18,000km across the world for).

The Second Time

The second time I was fired, I did see it coming. 

I left Nike to take a chance on a job that didn’t work out. And the week before Christmas I was jobless and my confidence shattered.

It was a really tough period in my life. 

But after 8 months of job hunting, I secured my dream role at Apple. Working in a team I loved, with a boss who was incredible, earning 3 times my previous salary.

Plus everything I learnt in my 8 months of job hunting, I wrote down and recorded and turned it into my coaching business.

Why it's the best thing…

When I was fired at 23, I had no idea I was capable of even securing a job at a company like Nike - but it turns out, I was. And I’d have never known, had I not been fired.

And when I was 32, and I was fired again, the journey I went on bought me to my coaching business and the Creative Career Level Up programme where I get to help other people find their dream roles at companies like Nike and Apple.

It’s human nature to want to stay in your comfort zone. I am just as guilty of it as anybody. 

But being thrown out of your comfort zone - even if it is by someone else - forces you to re-look at your life and what you want and where you are going. 

And when you reassemble it all, you might find it is more wonderful than the place you started.

I certainly did.