In every bad thing, there is a good part. Look for it!

„When I was fired from my job, I felt heartbroken, embarrassed, humiliated, resentful, frustrated and angry. I was overwhelmed with feelings. And none of them felt good. It was an awful moment in my life. I felt lucky to have friends and family who were so kind and supportive. They told me it was my boss's mistake, not mine. They told me that any other organization would be fortunate to have me. And they told me how sorry they felt for me.”

Does this scenario sound familiar to you?

These are the words I've extracted from a text written by one of my mentors, Rich Litvin, They resonate strongly with me, given a moment in my life when I went through a similar situation. However, I hadn't been fired; rather, I had been, if you will, estranged from the team I had built from the ground up and wrongly regarded as a family. I say 'wrongly' because I now understand that equating our workplace to a family doesn't help, as the dynamics are not and cannot be the same.

It was indeed the moment when I thought everything had crumbled, walking down the street, and not knowing who I was anymore. I had identified so strongly with the status I had held that it now seemed like it no longer existed.

 

It's painful, very painful, and I know that there are people today going through such a situation. That's precisely why I'm writing this newsletter, from the heart, from the depths of my soul, and with the desire not to leave you in a state of victimization. Now is not the time to victimize yourself, and yes, it's also not the time to only focus on how terrible your bosses are or how bad your company is for letting you go.

Look at yourselves, view yourselves from the perspective of: what benefit do I have at this moment? What are the things I've always wanted to do but couldn't because of my job? Keep seeking the benefits of the situation you're going through.

I've written before about the law of duality and how when something bad happens to us, we only see the negative side of that situation. When something good happens (or rather, something we perceive as good or bad), we only see the positive side of things. We always overlook the other half, and we always make decisions without considering this half.

Because, once again, it's a challenging period for many people, and perhaps for you, the one reading this newsletter right now, I invite you to remember the law of duality and put it on paper, with yourself, honestly and painfully sincerely. Write down the advantages you have in the negative situation you are currently experiencing and the disadvantages you would have faced if you had continued.

Let me share with you my advantages when the team I had built from scratch, and whom I loved like family, estranged me, creating the best moment of my life:

• • If this hadn't happened, I would probably still be in the employee status.

• • If this hadn't happened, I probably wouldn't have known anything other than going to work early in the morning and returning in the evening, enthusiastic, yes, about what I was doing, but unaware that there was another life around me.

• • If this hadn't happened, I wouldn't have truly learned how to be a manager and a leader.
  • If this hadn't happened, I wouldn't have realized that no matter how important I considered myself to be in that place, I wasn't the owner of that business, and all the clients saw me as just another employee, even though I thought I was irreplaceable.

And I could go on...

Of course, I say these things years later. In the two years immediately after, I cried on the streets, and everything that happened seemed so unfair to me. And you will probably cry for a while, and it will seem unfair to you for a while too. But set yourself a deadline. Cry until day x at hour y, after which, wipe your tears away, look for the advantages of the situation and see what you can build from there.

You now know about the law of duality. I didn't know back then.