\u201cYour family\u2019s broke.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I heard these words, I was 28 years old, making $35,000 a year, and tending to a 55-year-old father who was dying of fourth-stage lung cancer. Our attorneys told my younger sister and I that the financial tides had turned for our self-employed father, a self-made millionaire. Suddenly, there were more liabilities than assets. I was scared.<\/p>\n
Statements like this can be so sudden and so seemingly out of the blue that their effects at first are entirely physical: they spike your heart rate, make you shake all over, and leave you so anxious that you feel like you\u2019re trying to swallow a cotton ball.<\/p>\n
The news about my father\u2019s illness and the devastating circumstances was the worst, but it prepared me for every single one of the subsequent setbacks in my life, both personally and professionally.<\/p>\n
Like a good number of you, I\u2019ve been in business long enough and have taken risks that were big enough that I\u2019ve been on the receiving end of a lot of body blows. I\u2019ve taken them all very hard, and yes, very personally.<\/p>\n
1. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, we decided to go with another candidate.\u201d<\/strong> It was my dream job. I had rehearsed for it, told all my friends about it, eagerly anticipated it, and was led to believe I\u2019d get it. My heart sank.<\/p>\n 2. \u201cWe\u2019ve decided to terminate your position.\u201d<\/strong> Or, as Donald Trump says, \u201cYou\u2019re fired!\u201d How could it be? I was in love with this gig and got amazing feedback from colleagues, but the big boss had other ideas and felt that I was disloyal to him. I was stunned.<\/p>\n 3. \u201cWe\u2019re offering you a severance package.\u201d<\/strong> I knew the agency I was working for had lost a lot of clients, yet how is it that they\u2019re offering me a nice incentive to leave while Joe Blow down the hall got to stay? I was hurt.<\/p>\n