Driving back from my favorite bimonthly lunch meetings, I was listening to the Jim Rome radio show. He was interviewing John Calipari, the head basketball coach at the University of Memphis, who had written a book about being fired.
Their discussion was incredibly entertaining and inspiring.
One of the points Calipari reinforced was that it’s important to be positive and to ask for help. He spoke about successful people who had been fired and looked for opportunity. (Sadly, I cannot find information about the book, because I would love to add it to my amazon shopping cart.)
I wish I had been somewhere with paper so I could have captured their discussion, but I left definitely inspired and convinced that my choices have been good and I am doing the right things.
Being fired or being forced to rebuild is not a time to retreat, but a time to go forward.
Update: Commenter Jack Ptak says the working title is ““Bouncing Back” and provided a link to an ESPN article entitled “Lost Your Job? John Calipari Can Help You”.
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
You need to stay positive. You want to hold a grudge, to be vicious to those who did this to you. If you’re obsessed with that, you lose. Be obsessed with positive thoughts. Conduct the phone call test — Sam, pay attention to your phone calls with friends. There are those who you talk to who make you feel good. But there’s one person who, every time you talk to them, they’re negative. We all know people like that. Do you really want to talk to them? No. Don’t be that person.
You need to let go and move on. Look in the mirror and say, “Everything I’m going to do today will be positive. I’ll be upbeat when people talk to me.” You’ll notice it’ll change how people look at you and talk about you. You want to be able to draw people to you because, at some level, someone is going to have to reach out and help.
Update 2: Commenter Ricki asked about finding the rest of the story. Please let me know if anyone can find it and I will happily pass the link along.
Also, for anyone who only heard part of the broadcast, Jim Rome’s show is available to subscribers on his website or through iTunes.
I was listening also, from what I understood the book isn’t out yet but has a working title of “Bouncing Back”.
Found an interview that has the book title in it…
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=3177080&type=story
Thanks so much for your comment and the link. I was really inspired by Calipari’s comments, and I appreciate knowing what to (eventually) look for.
Great post!! I was listening to that interview also. I wish they had more time. He said in the interview that he gave his players an assignment to make a call to make someone “feel good today” and he never finished the story about one of his players who called his Kindergarten
teacher. Does anyone know where I can find the rest of the story?