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The one rule to learn to succeed in business or life.
I lost my job November 6th. Got laid off from the place, ESPN, with which I’d had a professional affiliation since my undergraduate days. It stung…but getting canned wasn’t surprising: When a sports network goes months without live sports and then when the games return but the fans don’t watch them, at least not at the volume they did before the pandemic, you assume that executives at a place like ESPN have hard choices ahead. I’d like to assume my boss’ choice to let me go was hard, but it doesn’t really matter. The choice was made. Better still, the choice is behind me. I have to move on.
Some friends, loved ones, and some concerned fellow parishioners at my Congregational church told me in the days after I lost my job that I seemed sanguine about it. I was. I had many people to thank for that, foremost my next door neighbor and friend, Scott Willett, who months and even years before my pink slip sensed that the life he led — his transition from a corporate executive into a self-made entrepreneur — was also the life I wanted. Over drinks and across a flaming fire pit, Scott guided me on many starry nights to imagine the sort of future I could have, if only I’d be bold enough to risk the present for it. When that future arrived and I told Scott I’d been let go he effectively said, Good. This is the…
