It's embarrassing to admit this, but I was recently fired from my job.  A place where I worked twice in the past 15 years. The first time for over 4 years and this last time for 5 years almost to the day. Fired. ME!  A place where I had dedicated extra efforts, extra hours, and at times actual blood, sweat and tears.  I was the top revenue producer.  By a lot.  But, that didn't matter.  Somehow my employer no longer saw the value in my efforts or in, gulp, me.  He was able to separate my amazing results, from me, the person.  Holy Shit!  Now what? 

First, I was numb,

then I was sad,

THEN I WAS MAD,

SO VERY MAD,

then I was sad again. 

In fact.

I'm still a little bit sad.

But I'm no longer mad.

As much as it sucks to get fired, and trust me it does, here is my take away.  They actually did me a huge favor.  HUGE.  And I was, grateful?  While I was toiling away each day selling crap loads of advertising, I was dreaming of the day I could quit.  I kept pushing it into the future.  Once the Volvo is paid off, then I'll quit.  Wait.  Once the house is paid off, THEN I'll quit.  Wait.  Someday, yep, someday soon, I'll quit and do what I really want.  I'll bet you can see where I'm headed with this. 

It is someday, today!  

Today is my someday. 

I decided while I was sad- then mad- then sad, to simply take the summer off.  I would take the luxury of time to decide what it was that I really wanted to do.  You see, I hadn't gotten quite that far in my dreaming.  I had the quitting my job part nailed down though.  To be honest, I'm slightly bummed they took that away from me as it was going to be a thing of beauty and legend but nevertheless.  I had not yet painted the picture of my dream with any clarity.  It was a big, blurry mess.  

Each morning, before Lil Red was up, I would make my gigantic cup of coffee, grab my pretty pink journal and head out to the deck to sort out my shit.  I would sit in the summer sun and I would grieve my loss.  I would plan and execute really fantastic revenge sequences in my imagination. I would berate myself for being that person, you know, the one who screws things up and gets fired from what everyone else thinks is a dream job.  But I also spent a lot of time dissecting what I loved about my work, what I loved about my clients and what brought me the most joy. 

Gratitude is an amazing thing.  Gratitude for golden sunrises, dark roast beans, a smoothly gliding pen and even gratitude for getting my sorry ass fired.  I'm not sure when that moment occurred.  But in that moment, warm from the morning sun, I was grateful for what had been such a poignantly negative blow to my surprisingly fragile esteem.  Grateful.  But I was not grateful for the magpies.  Damn, those birds are just annoying, and loud.  So very loud. 

It was there, over the roar of the magpies, that I decided that I could take the knowledge, experience, creativity and joy from my past and carve it into something fulfilling for my future.  With that said, I introduce you to http://janetjorgensen.com  This is me, in my humblest form, doing what I love.  Working with talented people who want to create amazing results together.