This is a continuation of last week’s post, How to Get Fired (Part 1).…
R&R
Okay, so the deed has been done. You’re free, or close to being free. You have probably been working hard under a very high degree of stress for some time. Back to my point from earlier, whether you like it or not, you are most likely burned out. It might not feel like it at first, but now is a great time to take a pause. Hopefully, you will be receiving some compensation that makes it easy to not feel guilty about doing so.
Rushing into a new job can be a very big mistake and risks repeating what you’ve just gone through. Feeling like you are still processing what happened can be a strong signal that it is time to lay low. Some of us are able to wrap these things up and make peace with them faster than others. High-performers tend to take longer, even if they don’t want to admit it (looking at you, friend).
If you are in a position you can’t take a break for financial reasons, therein lies another lesson. The higher up the ladder you go, the longer it takes to get a new job. That means you want to set yourself up with some residual income, or minimally maintain a nice pad of cash. I would advise at least 6 months of living expenses at minimum. These days you probably need a year to be safe.
If you are concerned about a gap on your resume, don’t be. People take time off for all sorts of legitimate reasons. It can always be framed into a positive when you get to interviewing for your next role. Try to get the idea that this will be a problem out of your head.
Get away from anything work related. Go do your hobbies. Go spend time with your family. Take the time to remember who and what is important in your life outside of your career. If you come to the realization that your work is all of your identity, my friend, you have a problem. Kevin Dahlstrom, 3x CMO and 4x Founder, gives some great advice on this. This is a good time to absorb the wisdom and put it into practice.
You will know when you are ready to get going again. Everyone will experience this differently. For me, the telltale sign is when I start to seek out and synthesize vast amounts of information by way of reading and research. That means I am ready to hit the ground running.
Strengths and Weakenesses
This part can earn some eye rolls as though I am the HR person running a mandatory (and mostly unwanted) workshop. But to evaluate what went wrong and prevent repeating the same scenario, you must consider your strengths and weaknesses. It hurts, but I suggest dealing with the weaknesses first. You will naturally be reminded of your strengths as time goes on.
We all have weaknesses and blind spots. In the spirit of leading by example, I have two notable weaknesses. Number one, I am not naturally a good verbal communicator or presenter. Number two, I tend to avoid conflict.
As you think about yours, you will probably come to realize you have developed a talent for working around them. I was good at finding ways to shield myself from conflict and trick some other sucker into handling it for me. Or, I would default into being a good diplomat and defusing rather than addressing.
You may also realize that your weaknesses have grown. I don’t necessarily mean they got worse, I mean they became more of an issue the higher you went up the food chain. Being a bad communicator wasn’t a big problem when I was an individual contributor. Moreover, being a good diplomat was a huge advantage in that it made me a very likeable and respected teammate. As I got into leading teams and having to advocate for my tribe these things quickly became serious liabilities.
I could go on at length about my weaknesses. Most high-performers can, because they’re very self-critical. The point of this is not to beat yourself up and dwell.
What is important to understand is that the skills that got you to where you are, are not the same skills that will get you through your next chapter. Understanding where you need to develop new skills is the key to reducing the risk of future failure and unlocking your full potential.
The Scariest Thing in the World
If you already have coaching and mentorship, this section isn’t for you. Good for you! You did the right thing. Go ahead and skip this part. If you do not, this is something you probably need to read.
I rode and raced bikes at a high level for several years and got very strong on my own. Yet I still blew it in some high-priority races. I had a rough idea of what I was doing wrong, but after one particularly bad showing I finally admitted to myself that it would be faster to *gulp* seek help from a coach. To some, this might be an obvious realization. It was not straightforward or simple for me.
I am deeply and stubbornly independent. If you are a high-performer, you might be, too. In some ways it is a huge strength. For instance, when I realized I needed a social media analytics tool to assess everyone’s campaigns in communications school, I just went ahead and coded one by myself using python.
One day I showed the tool to someone and they asked me if I had ever considered selling it. I replied, “huh, no…why would I do that? It’s just some simple code.” They gave me a coy smile. Fast forward to 2023, when the total addressable market for social media management software was valued at over $20 billion USD. You could say that I now understand what they were trying to tell me. Whoops.
You can be the smartest, highest-performing person in the room, yet totally lacking in context and wisdom that comes from experience. That’s where external perspective comes into play. Luckily, in this field, it is a concept we are already very familiar with.
As marketers we spend a lot of time thinking about things from our audience’s perspective. Like the process of market research and testing messaging, validating your ideas and soliciting external feedback saves a lot of time and stress. It can be the difference between a successful campaign and an extremely expensive mistake.
For some reason, though, when it comes to ourselves and our careers it can be easy to fall into the trap of trying to come up with all the answers on your own. That is the wrong approach. The sooner you realize this, the better.
You are not weak for seeking help. No one, and I mean no one, can do it on their own. Every notable historical, pop cultural, or business leader you have ever heard of had mentorship and coaching. Seriously, all of them. It takes a village to raise a legend. This is very much a process that done right can even earn you opportunities you wouldn’t otherwise get through networking, so take it as seriously as you would a full-time job.
Some other time I will write about lessons learned on how to find the right mentor, but often it’s enough for a high-performer to know that they need one and they will figure it out. Having someone is usually better than having no one.
What you definitely don’t want to do is rely on generic assistance like career transition services that may have been provided as part of your exit, or a “business coach” that appeared on your LinkedIn feed. Pay attention to your prospective mentor’s background and previous roles. This person should look like who you want to be in a few years.
On to The Next Gig
Once you’re finally ready for your next challenge, inevitably you will have to go through some interviews. That also means you have to talk about what happened in your last role. Yes, even if they don’t ask you directly. You have to approach it proactively. Trust me. This will come more naturally to some than others. It was definitely not natural for me.
The ability to talk about both successes and failures with credibility and confidence is arguably one of the single biggest indicators of a seasoned executive. Seriously, it might sound strange that openly talking about failure is an asset when trying to get a job, but I can assure you it is very much the case.
Try talking about it with others before you go and interview. If you are not good at it, you need to develop the skill to be successful in the long term. Practice on your coach or mentor, practice on your spouse, practice on your dog, practice on anyone that is willing to listen. You may fumble in the first couple of interviews, and that’s fine. Think of it as more practice. Eventually you will nail it.
It may take going through a few companies to find one that feels like a fit. You may also find yourself getting deep into a process you felt great about and not ultimately winning the job. That’s par for the course, and the mistake that gets made here time and time again is starting to let it impact your perception of your value.
The longer the process takes, the more potential there is for your self-confidence to fall. So if you feel it is taking much longer than you expected, you might need to seek out some guidance to make sure it is not something simple like seeking the wrong roles, or repeated but easily solved presentation blunders.
Market conditions can absolutely make this much harder, so if that is the case you need to solve for what makes a candidate stand out from the crowd. Assume that everyone you are competing with is equally if not more qualified than you, and then think creatively about what the underlying companies and hiring managers might find appealing.
In Closing
Resilience is a skill. Adaptability is a skill. Some will naturally have these skills, while others will need to spend some additional time developing them. There is no shame in needing a few cycles to work on yourself. It’s all for the better.
If you are someone that needs the additional time, I would encourage you to get involved with a new sport or competitive activity. If you take it seriously, the simple act of competing with others on a regular basis will help you develop the ability to rapidly learn key lessons and block out the noise (things not in your control).