How to get Fired

Motivational Story 

I CHOOSE TO BE EXHILARATED by the gift of failure. I say choose because it is a choice, just like any other choice you make in life. If a sales adventure doesn’t work out as I’d hoped, I just smile. Why? Because I know that failure always brings a gift with it. Every single time. When I experience ‘failure’, I want to turn around and say, ‘Thanks!’ to whoever has ‘disappointed’ me, because — without even intending to — that person has given me a beautiful and precious gift.

Not everyone chooses to think like this. Mel, for example. Mel is someone who cannot or will not recognise the power of her own choices. Result? Gifts all around her, and she misses every single one. Already, at our morning briefing at Greenlane BurgerKai, we’ve heard about her sales figures (lowest in the region) and about how this ‘makes’ her feel (awful, just awful). And, through all this —I’m going to have to use the word negativity here because I really don’t know what else to call it — all this negativity — we haven’t heard a single word about solutions. Not a word about learnings or building positive outcomes. Nothing.

While Mel is going on as she does, Jase and I exchange a look. Jase is our Team Lead. He’s tried to help Mel with her defeatist self-talk again and again. I know it will mean a lot to Jase if I step up and say something, so I place my macchiato cup back on its saucer. I get the cup exactly in the circle of the saucer without dripping any coffee or making any noise and, while I’m doing this, I think about what I’m going to say. I could say nothing, of course. I could just stare out the window at the carpark and stay silent. But these morning briefings are our opportunity for an authentic exchange of learnings as a team. So, if not now, then when?

I say, ‘Mel, nobody and nothing can make you feel anything. It’s just not possible. How can anyone be made to feel anything? When you think about it, the idea of someone making someone else feel something is crazy. You would have to be some sort of God to force someone to feel something they don’t want to feel. How would you do it? Would you crawl into their brains and do surgery on their synapses?’

‘You can’t control your emotions, Toby. They are what they are.’ Mel leans forward when she says this. Her shirt gapes in the area where she’s put on the most weight. The shirt is green, and the gaping is in the shape of a squashed-down diamond.

‘You seem to be saying that you can’t control your own emotions,’ I say, ‘but that other people can control them for you. I think we can all see the problem with that argument.’

Jase says, ‘Time for our motivational story,’ interrupting the flow of the conversation, which is probably a good thing because a thinking-change of the kind Mel needs is the kind that can only come from within. I can do no more than sow the seed for future work.

Jase does a drum roll on the table, but his expression is blank.

I know this expression. It’s his placeholder expression. He uses it when he’s trying not to have facial expressions which are Not In Sync with his core values. N.I.S. Not In Sync. Keeping your thoughts and therefore your expressions In Sync with your core values is an act of personal discipline and the kind of thing Jase is seriously good at.

‘Nice and short today,’ he says, ‘so we can all get out there into our Daily Sales Adventure.’

At this exact moment, the exact moment Jase says the bit about today’s motivational story being nice and short, I notice a woman who looks exactly like the actress Jenna-Lynn Stone lining up at the vegan self-service hub. I realise, of course, that Jenna-Lynn Stone is a very famous person who lives in a different hemisphere, and I realise that if she was visiting Greenlane BurgerKai there would be media coverage and security men and rope fences holding the wrong people back from the right people. Even so, this woman looks a hell of a lot like her. She has the little Jenna-Lynn Stone smirk when she looks down at her phone, like she would prefer to smile wider but her mouth just isn’t built for it and she has to manage as best she can with the mouth she has. I can see other people around her in the vegan queue look at her and think, Nah. Can’t be.

‘Okay,’ Jase says, ‘today’s story is called “Future Reconfiguring”.’

Mel snorts or maybe coughs.

The woman who looks like Jenna-Lynn Stone picks up her tray from the service hub and makes her way to a table where several large men are already sitting. On her tray she has a tall glass of water and one kid-zone salad. Mineral water and a kid-zone garden salad for breakfast! Not even a full adult-sized salad. This is the kind of discipline you need at her level in the entertainment industry. High-level pinnacle-of-career stuff.

‘Today’s story is about this guy, right?’ says Jase. ‘His marriage is on the rocks. His job has gone to shit. His house is foreclosed on, and so on and so forth. So, anyway, he goes into the bank to see the bank manager. So, he’s sitting in the lobby of his bank, waiting to see the bank manager, waiting to beg on bended knee for more time to try and save his house, and so on and so forth. And right there, in the lobby of his bank, this amazing concept comes to him called Future Reconfiguring.’

‘Is this scenario taking place in America?’ Mel asks. ‘You mentioned house foreclosure, so I’m assuming it is.’

‘Yes,’ says Jase, ‘but to be honest, the message of the story is more about the self-actualisation aspect of dealing with adversity, rather than which specific country it’s set in. It’s more a universal thing than specific to one particular country.’

He has his placeholder expression on again.

‘Okay,’ Mel says. ‘Just checking.’

Jase goes on to describe how the guy in the story turns his life around, even though he’s at rock bottom. Really, really rock bottom. And now this very same guy, the one who was at rock bottom, travels the world sharing his experience of Future Reconfiguring so that other people the world over can benefit from the same life-changing miracle that he himself has personally experienced.

‘I’ve always wondered,’ Mel says, ‘does the term “foreclosure” refer to the exact moment when the bank takes legal ownership of the house? Or is it when the moving people physically come to your house with a moving van and physically make you leave? Or is it some slang term that takes in the whole thing, from missing your first mortgage payment to watching your stuff being driven away, like in the Matthew McConaughey movie?’

‘I think the point is, you lose your house,’ Jase says, ‘not the exact timing of foreclosure, per se. I think the point is that no matter what life throws at you, you can always look for the lesson in it and find something to be grateful for.’

I open my Daily Growth Register and key in change my thinking.

I turn the phone around so Jase can see what I’ve written. Here aches out and pats my shoulder. I feel like he’s showing me that he and I are in this together, and we can overcome any number of pathway obstacles, including Mel carrying on like she does.

Then Jase pushes his chair back and stretches his arms around in a circle. ‘Ready?’ he says.

‘Ready,’ we both say.

We pick up our phones and shake out our jackets and get ready to leave.