I only felt the sting of being fired once. The newspaper editor at my first writing job cut me loose. We never meshed. Young & raw, I was furious & started a competing newspaper.
That decision launched an exhausting, three-year, slow-motion march to bankruptcy.
But those brutal newspaper years gave me the skills to become a successful freelance writer. I soon earned more as a freelancer than at the corporate job I'd quit to become a writer.
One large newsletter client gave me reoccurring work, paying a full-time income with just part-time work.
Having extra time, I sent a pitch letter to a non-competing newsletter company. They responded with a phone call. They were unhappy with their current freelance editor & were going to fire her.
They offered me her job. Then they revealed the pay-per-issue. It was painfully lower than what I was currently earning. I politely declined.
Curious, I web-searched the newsletter to learn who was being fired.
It was the newspaper editor who had fired ME.
Not only was I offered her job, but I declined because her pay was so insultingly low.
She never knew that our roles had reversed. But I did.
Due to vindication, that was the best job offer I ever turned down.
Life has a way of coming full circle.
Adversity has a way of forcing events upon us for our greater good.
What looks like a total disaster today, can shrink to just a dark-moment-in-time that we've proudly overcome later.
As difficult as those newspaper days were, they were a gift. Margie & I used all that learning to create & buy future businesses, leading to an early retirement that would've never occurred without that adversity.
My sincere wish to you is just enough adversity to push you to your dreams without pushing you over the edge.
In the long run, with our awareness, the universe usually delivers that balance.
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To read our full rags-to-riches newspaper back story click here: "How We Turned a Broken Coffee Machine Into Millions"
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