And now looking back, what part of that story was just incomplete or just flat out wrong?

Well, I love this question.

First of all, people ask me all the time.

So you've been fired a lot.

Does it get any easier? And I say, well, yes and no.

It's always a kick in the gut.

No matter whether you screwed up or whether you're part of a massive reduction in force, the idea that you're gone and someone else is still there is really difficult to take.

How do you reframe this building or this outreach so that feels less

I think this was a really compelling idea.

Right.

Thank you.

So yeah, so we did talk about this.

This is, this is something which I talk about a lot with everybody, and it, it gets back to this idea of mindset, right? And in today's world, I maintain that you should always present yourself and think of yourself As a consultant delivering value to a client, never think of yourself as an employee working on the, under the direction of a manager or a supervisor.

Because this is a time in the workforce where your productivity is at a premium, and if you are continuing to, uh, assume the responsibilities of a entry-level or an early career executive, where you're still learning the ropes, that's not going to serve you well in your mid to late career, where more is expected of you, right? You're, you're supposed to be worth more.

You got all this experience.

So what are some things that might make sense to start asking, or practices, or processes, or procedures, things that people might be able to work someone through to help, help sort that out?

is exactly the essence right so so so important yeah um love it and let's go let's go a little bit more tactical now right about people that are wanting to look at you know they're in that transition phase they're wanting to land a better job and i know you talk about this hidden job market right and how people can sort of tap into that so tell us more about that as well

right So the essence of the work that I do with people is to kind of decouple them, detach them from this broken hiring system of applying to jobs endlessly online.

Dozens, hundreds of applications that are being mishandled by automation and now by AI on both sides, and it's a cluster F, right? That we're all a part of, no one's happy, employers aren't happy, candidates aren't happy.

The key to getting a job is relationships.

That is what the hidden job market is all about, about referrals.

And think of this as human nature, really.

And I'm sure you've been a hiring manager, been in situations where you were hiring staff, and I certainly have done this a lot in my career.

Is there any other mistakes that job seekers are making when they're looking for a new job that they should refrain from doing?

And I'm wondering, what did that moment force you to confront?

I had this, I wouldn't say tempestuous, but it was certainly a volatile career in a volatile business.

A lot of change going on.

I like to say that the rest of the world has become as volatile as Hollywood always was in that we took job transitions for granted because we were all buffeted about by box office failures and successes and management changes and creative differences and all of these kinds of strange fragments of the way the business worked and still works.

So I became used to needing to look for a job every few years or sooner in some cases.

Some of it had to do with my performance or lack thereof.

Most of the time it was because I was looking for new opportunities and was able to transition into a new job.

know,

So how can we remain authentic? How can we teach leaders to remain authentic, especially when they are leading others and they need to play that role very efficiently and, and help their organization build that trust and collaboration internally and all of these things we're talking about?

This is a great question.

I think it, it, uh, it flows out of the previous question around networking and performative engagement.

Uh, I don't think people necessarily have an understanding of what it is to be authentic, and it's a very slippery slope.

You know, playing a role is not the same thing as having a voice.

That may be a good place to kind of start the conversation because if you're playing a role, traditionally, when you think about that, that concept is it's not you, that role, right? That's some external construct that you have developed to, in your mind, achieve a particular purpose.

And the disconnect there is that if that role is not really you, doesn't really come from who you are as a person, then it can never be authentic.

So how can organizations really do better in that area?In your opinion