Being fired can be painful, baffling, traumatic even.
It is perhaps only worse when taking on the job you just lost included selling your multimillion-dollar business, risking your personal reputation, destroying your marriage, skipping the birth of your child to watch your boss frighten Boy Scouts, becoming an international joke, being the subject of endless, merciless memes and genuflecting yourself at the stumbling feet of an addled, dyspeptic apostle for an incoherent political agenda that runs counter to the majority of your long-held convictions.
It is a rare well of pain from which recently dismissed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci is drinking deep today.
But Scaramucci — the Mooch — should not wallow in his own well-oiled tears. He is not alone (despite the fact that he no doubt sits seething and isolated on a leather couch, deep into his third bottle of Cab Sav in an otherwise empty Georgetown apartment at this very moment). He has someone to guide him through the process of losing his job. He has Anthony Scaramucci.
In October of last year, Anthony Scaramucci — businessman and author — joined to discuss his new book, "Hopping over the Rabbit Hole: How Entrepreneurs Turn Failure into Success." He gave our own Carrie Sheffield some useful tips on how to survive firing and turn it into a formative experience in a successful career.
"You have to get fired with dignity," said the Mooch in honest, not-at-all-fiery language. After comparing firing people to beating children, Scaramucci suggests the dismissed engage in strong, broad networking and creating stronger relationships through asking favors. As he says, "If you're in mid-career and you've been fired, pick up the phone and call as many people as you possibly can and ask them favors, get back in the workplace, stay optimistic, stay young . . . get yourself in a vital position."
It is, in truth, crisp, solid advice that we implore Scaramucci to take. Though we hope when he gets on the phone to ask favors from Rupert Murdoch or Jeff Zucker, he watches his language.
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